
EDW 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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Shelf ifcfe&i 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LEAGUE AT WORK SERIES 



CONCERNING 



THE 

COLLECTION 




F0R jlM&Oa 

THE DEPARTMENT 
OF FINANCE 



By EDWIN A. SCHELL, D.D 

GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

By CHARLES E. PIPER, A.M 

TREASURER OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE 



NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON 
CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS 
1895 



Copyright by 
HUNT & EATON, 
1895. 



Composition, electrotyping, 
printing, and binding by 
Hunt & Eaton, 
150 Fifth Ave., New York. 



INTRODUCTION. 



NOTHER serviceable book from the 



facile pen of our loved Secretary. 
No more timely book could have been 
written, for the mighty Epworth host 
awaits the order to conquer the world for 
Christ, lacking only the knowledge of the 
means and wise direction to win the glo- 
rious victory. 

The conviction steals its way into our 
hearts that the message of peace will reach 
"all the world," and "every creature" 
hear His holy name when, to pure and 
sanctified hearts, we add the consecration 
of our earthly store. 

To encourage and stimulate the habit of 
systematic giving is the object of "Con- 
cerning the Collection." 

The subject-matter is set forth under 
suggestive topics, so arranged that the 
book may readily be used as a text-book, 
not only for Leaguers, but for general in- 




4 



Introduction. 



struction in all Churches. Dr. Schell's 
novel arrangement of 4 'The Financial Group 
in the Apostolic College" is very striking, 
and will strengthen the purposes of the 
financial group in every church. 

The work of the Lord tarries, not so 
much for the lack of the millions of our 
rich men, as for the dimes and dollars of 
our burden bearers. 

" Everyday Principles " and " Don'ts 
and Do's " should become a part of the 
daily life of every Epworth League chap- 
ter, and never again would the pastor be 
justified in taking for his text: " Shall a 
man rob God ? " 

Let the book find a place in every 
League and Sunday school library. Let 
its strong purpose and forceful energy en- 
ter into the life of all our church organiza- 
tions, and the army of the Lord will line 
up in battle array ready to march forward 
and win the victories which the Lord de- 
mands at our hands. 

Charles E. Piper. 

Berwyn, III., Feb, i, 1895. 



Table of Contents. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 
Over Against the Treasury, - - 9 

CHAPTER II. 
The Financial Group in the Apostolic College, 1 7 

CHAPTER III. 
The Hebrew, Mohammedan, and Mormon 



Systems, ------- 25 

CHAPTER IV. 
Men and Money in the Christian System, - 35 

CHAPTER V. 
John Wesley's Scheme of Finance, - - 45 

CHAPTER VI. 
Everyday Principles, - - - - - 55 

CHAPTER VII. 
Don'ts and Do's for the Department of Finance, 63 

CHAPTER VIII. 
' ' What Saith the Scripture ?" - - - - 7 1 



6 



Contents. 



CHAPTER IX. page 
An Interrogation, ------ 83 

CHAPTER X. 

New York Conference Missionary Sermon, by 

Rev. Andrew Longacre, D.D., - - - 87 



Appendix, - - - - - - -103 



And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts 
into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow cast- 
ing in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto 
you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all : For 
all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of 
God : but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she 
had. (Luke xxi, 1-4.) 

And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we 
know that thou art true, and carest for no man ; for thou re- 
gardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in 
truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we 
give, or shall we not give ? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, 
said unto them, Why tempt ye me ? bring me a penny, that I 
may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, 
Whose is this image and superscription ? And they said unto 
him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that 
are God's. And they marveled at him. (Mark xii, 14-17.) 

And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to 
my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he 
said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over 
you ? And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covet- 
ousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth. (Luke xii, 13-15.) 

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of 
a certain rich man brought forth plentifully : And he thought 
within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no 
room where to bestow my fruits ? And he said, This will I do : 
I will pull down my barns, and build greater ; and there will I 
bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take 
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, 
Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee : then 
whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided ? So is 
he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward 
God. (Luke xii, 16-21.) 



CONCERNING THE COLLECTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

Over Against the Treasury. 

JESUS, sitting on the steps of the temple court 
watching the multitude who lingered after the 
sacrifice to pay their vows and offerings, cannot fail 
to be an impressive spectacle. It will heighten the 
impressiveness to remember that Jesus is the God 
for whose worship this temple was built, and that 
after this incident he is to bid it a final farewell. 
His heart must have been surging with moral in- 
dignation as he observed the worshipers making the 
rounds of the thirteen trumpet-shaped chests which 
received the offerings. He was wearied by the in- 
cessant cavils of the Sadducees and the gainsaying of 
the scribes, and he had but just rebuked their hypoc- 
risy and presumption by his reply to their question, 
" Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar ?" Once before 
he had refused to decide a question of inheritance, 
and had spoken at another time the parable of the 
rich fool. He had already also used the telling 
quotation unrecorded by the evangelists but re- 
membered by St. Paul, " It is more blessed to give 
than to receive." All of these lessons are sug- 
gested in that swift searching glance around the 
temple corridor. 



io Concerning the Collection. 



We forget sometimes that he was interested in the 
treasury. We have formed the impression that he 
was never interested in anything save what we term 
spiritual work. Just as he was a winner of souls 
by personal work as well as by the atonement on 
Calvary, so he was interested in every detail of his 
kingdom: the treasury, the disciples, the children, the 
ordinances as well as the general kingdom. His own 
work was drawing to a close. The conversation with 
certain Greeks, which follows immediately after, 
probably concludes his ministry of teaching. Only for 
a moment could his eye have rested on the ever- 
shifting panorama of rich and poor who crowd for- 
ward with their offerings. The builders were still 
at work repairing the temple ; but the look of Jesus 
was not occupied with their curiously carved cedar 
work, nor with the delicate sculpturing on the votive 
chests. Nor was it concerned with the amount of 
the gifts. His look was long enough, however, to 
discriminate as to the classes of givers ; to mark the 
ostentatious, the self-satisfied, the sordid, the dutiful, 
and the timid, and to rivet attention for all time to 
the test of sincerity which the manner and amount 
of giving puts upon the worshiper. 

It was not less a matter of interest then than now 
to watch the givers and their giving. Reflections, 
some of them very stern, must have come to the 
mind of our Lord as he paused to consider. Pos- 
sessed of less penetration than our Lord, we are 
more inclined to observe and comment upon the 
ostentation in manner and amount. The Son of 
God had no eyes for the group of Pharisees who 
perhaps at that moment were making their rounds. 



Over Against the Treasury. ii 



They typified the greed and covetousness of their 
times ; yes, and we can truly say of all times, for the 
Pharisee has had sixty generations of imitators since 
then. The invective and sarcasm of even the 
Talmud is neither keen nor incisive enough to 
fittingly describe them. Luke says that our Lord 
did observe the rich casting in their gifts, and Mark 
does not fail in his fuller details to remark that 
44 Many that were rich cast in much." It was 
certainly true, for the treasury was frequently en- 
riched by money that should have gone to the sup- 
port of poor and aged parents. There was a law 
forbidding gifts to the temple of less than a certain 
proportion of the giver's possessions, and the fact 
that they were there and known to be wealthy would 
vouch for the size of the gift. History substantiates 
the statement also. After having met every possible 
expenditure Pompey found the temple treasury to 
contain over twelve millions of dollars in coined and 
uncoined wealth. But it must be noted that upon 
the size of these gifts Jesus made no comment. 

The self-satisfied giver was there, no doubt. He 
came to pay for some past neglect. So was the 
sordid giver, who gave grudgingly ; likewise the 
dutiful giver. He felt it his duty to sustain the 
temple services, and with what grace he could com- 
mand made his offering. But it was the timid 
solitary figure of a pauper widow that moved our 
Lord to speech. The great gifts could not, but her 
small offering did. Fancy can picture her coming 
alone with the downcast, hopeless, despairing look 
which poverty too often wears. She came as if 
ashamed to be seen among the crowd of richer 



12 Concerning the Collection. 

givers, and yet moved by that inner consciousness 
never quite lost, which asserts " It is more blessed 
to give than to receive." She nervously tightened 
her hand to conceal the two " perutahs " from the 
searching eyes of the more affluent ; then hastily 
dropped them in and passed on. This was the 
smallest offering the law permitted anyone to 
make. Mark makes out of it a story of singular 
pathos, in the words "all her living." Edersheim 
thinks that it was all she had to live upon for that 
day and until she had earned more. This she gave 
an humble offering to God. She did not know that 
his pure eyes had seen it, nor that Jesus had 
marked in it her absolute surrender and self-sac- 
rifice. That she had a light and joy in her desola- 
tion that day needs no statement, for it is the sure re- 
ward for every sacrifice for God. The words of 
Christ make this one of the most important occa- 
sions in his whole life. This self-denial of the 
widow, the essence of all true charity, moves him to 
the words, " She hath cast in more than they all." 
They touch a chord in human life which less skilled 
hands than his have never been able to strike, and 
thrill you as only they and the words to Mary, " She 
hath done what she could," can thrill. 

Jesus sat over against the treasury. The very 
site is a matter of uncertainty now. The contribu- 
tion of the poor widow enabled him to leave the pre- 
cincts of his Father's house with words, not of anger, 
but of approval. Did he turn as he left the temple 
to look once more at the graceful porches, the 
towering columns, the beveled blocks of marble 
testifying to the toil and munificence of many 



Over Against the Treasury. 13 

generations ? We know at least that he foresaw them 
tottering to their fall. Who can doubt that he who 
keepeth watch forever watches still ? He saw the 
rich cast in their gifts into the treasury ; he sees 
them still. The eyes of him who observed the 
widow closely and read her truly still run to and 
fro in every place. Be sure that vulgar ostentation 
and generous self-denial are never unmarked by him. 

And the Rich Still Cast in their Gifts. But 
few of them are Pharisees, and many are dutiful 
financial supporters of the faith of their fathers. 
We need always to beware of hasty conclusions 
concerning men's spiritual state, based on merely 
external indications, but no doubt the ostentatious 
and self-righteous still frequent the temple. The 
display and greed marked by Jesus that day did not 
end with the temple's destruction. They still exist, 
and we do not need to search far for illustrations. It 
makes one sad to admit it, not only because the 
treasury needs their gifts, though this is occasion 
enough, but from other aspects it is sadder still. We 
all know men who have given themselves to money 
making with a devotion so exclusive that the nobler 
man has already died within them. They neglect 
duty, violate conscience, repress their spiritual 
energies, put aside all that makes life fair and grace- 
ful and noble, and incessantly tax their brain to 
grow rich. They become more sordid year by 
year, and St. James's comparison of a rich man to a 
blade of grass is all too true. The sun of prosperity 
has beat upon them until all nobility of character 
has faded under it. 

And the rich are ostentatious yet too frequently. 



i4 Concerning the Collection. 



There is still money to be gained from the Pharisee 
if you will herald his gifts widely enough in the news- 
papers, or call out his name loud enough at the 
great public gathering. It is one of the temptations 
of wealth, and some allowance must be made for 
the many who are unable to resist it. There are 
other vices of the rich, such as forgetfulness of re- 
sponsibility, indolence, extravagance, and unscru- 
pulousness in the methods by which they get their 
gain that are less easily condoned. 

Blessed be God, we still receive the " two mites " 
which thankful poverty always brings. That woman 
is still in the Church, and many like her. She did not 
give because in the sordid theology of the times she 
thought her alms would have a future commercial 
value, nor from any sense of duty. She had learned 
by intuition or by faith or by experience that ' ' It is 
more blessed to give than to receive." That is the 
final rebuke of covetousness. It will put an end to 
beggary. The difference between poverty and beg- 
gary is that poverty knows that it is more blessed to 
give ; beggary, from either the standpoint of igno- 
rance, indolence, or vice, thinks it is more blessed to 
receive. When the manliness of giving and the 
meanness of receiving is plainly taught we will put an 
end to nine tenths of the beggars of the world. This 
teaching of our Lord will make an Indian beggar an 
American citizen. " Give bread !" " Give money !" 
"Divide! " the cry respectively of the tramp, the 
beggar, and the socialist, all have their root in covet- 
ousness. 

There was no thought of any future return in the 
mind of this woman, as it would have turned aside 



Over Against the Treasury. 15 



the rising incense of her sacrifice and would have 
been known to His searching eye. It is blessed to 
give — this was the prompting of her heart. Like the 
perfume of the alabaster box of ointment very pre- 
cious which Mary broke, this deed of loving sacrifice 
still fills the Church as a loving example, and like 
Mary, too, the poor widow was thus making her 
memorial, for, as in the other beautiful incident, so 
in this : wherever in the whole world the Gospel is 
preached this also is told. 



1 



Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon 
called Zelotes. (Luke vi, 15.) 

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these ; the first, 
Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother ; James 
the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bar- 
tholomew ; Thomas, and Matthew the publican ; James the son 
of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus ; Simon 
the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. 
(Matt, x, 2-4.) 

Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, 
which should betray him. Why was not this ointment sold for 
three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not 
that he cared for the poor ; but because he was a thief, and had 
the bag, and bare what was put therein. (John xii, 4-6.) 

And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, 
named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith 
unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. (Matt, 
ix, 9.) 

After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the 
taxing, and drew away much people after him : he also per- 
ished ; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. 
(Acts v, 37.) 



CHAPTER II. 



The Financial Group in the Apostolic 
College. 

THE Twelve who companied with our Lord 
have had frequent divisions into subgroups. 
Two groups of six each have been observed by- 
some, and six groups of two each by others. Bruce, 
in The Training of the Twelve, divides them into 
three groups of four each. All of these are made 
in deference to the order of their names in the apos- 
tolic catalogues, or by reason of the infrequency of 
the mention of some of them in the gospel narra- 
tives. 

A better subdivision would be four groups of three 
each. This would allow the men to be drawn to- 
gether,' not merely by relationship and order, but 
because of affinity in temperament and taste and 
occupation. This would also attract attention to the 
union of opposites in the Apostolic College. This 
union of temperament and opposites did not occur 
accidentally, we may be sure, but by design, and was 
a prophecy of what the future Church was to be. 
The Twelve were the Church, or any true group of 
Christians in miniature. Every body of believers is 
almost sure to have its impulsive party, its affec- 
tionate group, its circle of legalists, and those who 
assume and direct its financial burdens. The latter 
are not always appreciated by the Church, as they 
were not among the Twelve. 
2 



18 Concerning the Collection. 



The disciples were all business men, but there is a 
special financial group made up of Judas, Matthew, 
and Simon. One fourth of the whole company 
seem to have been called into the circle of disciple- 
ship, if not by virtue of, at least possessed of, business 
aptitudes. Judas, by virtue of preeminent ability 
and his great crime, is the chief of these three. He 
was, perhaps, not so noble as the others, but more 
discerning, and became treasurer of the party prob- 
ably because he had a talent for business. But 
there is a weightier reason than even this, for most of 
his brethren in the discipleship were careless about 
money matters, and were only too glad to find 
Judas willing to take the trouble of looking after the 
surplus funds. 

John, in recounting the incident at Bethany, hints 
at a moral delinquency in Judas. Men usually 
careless in financial matters have moments when 
they are exceedingly and unreasonably exacting, 
and this may explain why the apostolic treasurer 
was held in low esteem by John and the rest. The 
pilfering was the sign of a mean, sordid soul, and 
the evangelists distinctly represent him as covetous. 
But avarice and greed of gain can never be an ex- 
planation of the crime which perforce makes him 
notorious. Thirty pieces of silver are altogether in- 
adequate as an explanation of the betrayal. Ambi- 
tion or envy and hate, and not the fact that he 
carried the bag, brought him to his ruin. This view 
is also sustained by the fact that when Christ said, 
" One of you shall betray me," each of the disciples 
said, "Lord, is it I?" No one of them suspected 
Judas. Covetousness. again, could not have been 



The Financial Group. 19 



his besetting sin, for Judas must have been too 
shrewd not to know that following Jesus, who had 
not where to lay his head, and whose disciples once 
on a Sabbath morning breakfasted on wheat shelled 
as they ate it, was not a likely way of money-mak- 
ing. Judas, like many another man of splendid 
talents, was made mercenary and unscrupulous by 
greed, and this, without the betrayal, will sound suffi- 
cient warning to all men who occupy their lives in 
chasing money in this sordid age. 

Matthew, the second member of this financial 
committee, was a taxgatherer, and was called while 
sitting in his customs office at Capernaum. There 
could have been no worldly wisdom in his call. His 
associations were of the lowest fishermen and peas- 
ant class. The Talmud enumerates three classes of 
men with whom promises were not binding : mur- 
derers, thieves, and publicans. The latter were 
hated as the constabulary of Ireland, who collect 
rack rents and evict tenants, are hated. The reason 
is not far to seek. Students of the classics know 
the ingenuity of the Romans in inventing taxes, and 
in finding names for every sort of exaction. The 
taxes were sold in Rome to the highest bidder, and 
were levied "on axles, wheels, pack animals, pe- 
destrians, roads, highways ; on admission to markets, 
on carriers, bridges, ships, and quays ; on crossing 
rivers, on dams, on licenses," and it might be 
added that objects of taxation still remain unenu- 
merated, which the scholar is unable to identify and 
translate. The publicans collected these levies. Of 
all these officials those who collected toll from boats 
would be most hated in Capernaum. 



20 Concerning the Collection. 

Along with Judas and Matthew comes Simon. 
Luke calls him Simon Zelotes, that is, Simon the 
Zealot. This connects him unmistakably with the 
famous party that rose in rebellion under Judas 
against the payment of taxes some twenty years 
before the beginning of Christ's ministry. He was 
patriotic, and had been driven to desperation by the 
enormities of Roman taxation. The insurrection of 
Judas was crushed, but the causes still remained. 
It is almost unpleasant to those who follow the in- 
junction of St. Paul and pay taxes to the civil power 
to find Simon among the Twelve. Perhaps it was 
this Simon who persuaded the other Simon to 
question the Lord about the propriety of paying 
tribute to Caesar, and at any rate Matthew, whose 
business it was to collect taxes, and Simon, who 
evaded their payment, even to the point of rebellion, 
met in this company in closest fellowship and con- 
tributed antithetical ideas to the financial group. 

Several thoughts legitimately follow from the 
selection and names of this financial group. 

1. It will serve to make us increasingly generous 
in our estimate of the character and service of the 
men who have in charge the finances of the various 
religious organizations to which we may belong. 
None were more necessary, and, save Judas, none 
more worthy of trust in the apostolic company than 
these three. Many besides Judas have through 
malice or purposes of gain betrayed noble men and 
noble causes. What influence upon his final char- 
acter covetousness may have had we cannot say. 
At the time of the betrayal, however, there was 
nothing in his conduct, or in the price paid him for 



The Financial Group. 21 



treachery to the most exalted of victims that would 
bring reproach upon his office. As for Matthew 
and Simon, who can bring aught against them ? If 
the one ever had been guilty of extortion in collect- 
ing taxes, or the other chargeable with fraud in re- 
fusing to pay them, the spirit was exorcised. If the 
voice of Jesus like a spell won them to follow him, 
the life of Jesus, like some magnet that charges a 
needle drawn within its magnetic field, purified and 
tranquilized them until they were willing to go, and 
go at once, and go without scrip or money or two 
staves on his errands. The one wrote the gospel 
which bears his name, and both suffered martyrdom 
for the sake of Christ. Their lives and deaths illus- 
trate and suggest that no class leader, however as- 
siduous in devotion to his duties, no Sunday school 
superintendent, no strenuous advocate of perfect 
love can claim religious superiority to the steward. 

2. It should also make us careful in the selection 
of men for financial duties, who should not be 
chosen by a process of elimination. Because others 
will not or prefer not to exercise the office of 
treasurer, this function should not be allowed to drift 
into careless or incompetent hands, nor be commit- 
ted to those to whom by any means it could become 
a source of temptation. There are those who can 
" carry the bag " without becoming sordid and self- 
complacent. To look after delinquents, to gener- 
ously press the obligations of Christian giving, to 
attend to the details of a hundred weekly accounts 
and transactions as a labor of love, and with 
conscientious exactness and strict integrity ; to 
even neglect duties esteemed more religious and 



22 Concerning the Collection. 

more pleasing to God in order to attend to those 
assigned by brethren, requires no slight depth of 
character. He that is thus capable is truly a 
steward of the manifold grace of God. 

3. This should also be an encouragement to men 
of mediocre abilities to enter upon this delicate and 
difficult financial work. For his whole company of 
disciples Jesus was compelled to be content with 
fishermen, publicans, and quondam zealots. There 
were scores who deemed themselves better able, and 
from the human standpoint were better qualified, to 
fill the cabinet of the Prince of Peace, but they were 
too proud or indifferent or cynical to assume dis- 
cipleship. They were fettered by society and under 
the restraints of custom. Judas, Matthew, and Simon, 
who did not have a tithe of the financial talent, prob- 
ably, of a Joseph of Arimathea, or a Nicodemus, or of 
a hundred scribes who came daily to cavil at Jesus, 
assumed these places when Christ called. Christ pre- 
ferred devoted men with few talents to undevoted 
men with many. Patient and persistent application 
and faithfulness will go far to qualify any member 
of the Church for any position. 

4. Herein also is a pertinent hint for the conduct 
of men in these positions of financial trust in the 
Church. Suppose the small dishonesties of Judas 
had escaped the attention of his associates, which 
they did not, he was still to blame for the lack of 
cordiality with which he seems to have been re- 
garded. The mean, narrow habits of Judas beyond 
doubt attracted attention. He had the tendency of 
men common to that position to put the interest of 
the bag above the objects for which the contents 



The Financial Group. 



23 



were collected. He doled out his supplies grudg- 
ingly. This, and his comment that the ointment of 
Mary could have been sold for five hundred pence 
and given to the poor, was sure to cause remarks in 
the outspoken company in which he found himself. 
In modern times this would take the form of com- 
plaint that certain sums given to missions or to the 
freedmen were not given to a church debt or a new 
church or parsonage repairs instead, or vice versa. 

There was also a growing sense of proprietorship 
in what the purse contained. Some men who have 
long held trust funds come to regard themselves 
almost as owners, and in inverse ratio their effi- 
ciency is by so much decreased. For such cases the 
only remedy is a frequent accounting and an itin- 
erating treasury. 



Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When 
ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap 
the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits 
of your harvest unto the priest : And he shall wave the sheaf 
before the Lord, to be accepted for you : on the morrow after 
the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. (Lev. xxiii, 10, n.) 

And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered 
thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. 
(Gen. xiv, 20.) 

And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the 
land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto 
the Lord. And if a man will at all redeem aught of his tithes, 
he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof. And concerning the 
tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth 
under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. (Lev. 
xxvii, 30-32.) 

At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the 
tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within 
thy gates : And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor in- 
heritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and 
the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall 
eat and be satisfied ; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in 
all the work of thine hand which thou doest. (Deut. xiv, 28, 29.) 

Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the, first fruits 
of all thine increase. (Prov. iii, 9.) 

I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 
(Luke xviii, 12.) 

The first fruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, 
and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him. 
(Deut. xviii, 4.) 

And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's 
house : and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give 
the tenth unto thee. (Gen. xxviii, 22.) 

Thou shalt eat it within thy gates : the unclean and the clean 
person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart. Only 
thou shalt not eat the blood thereof ; thou shalt pour it upon 
the ground as water. (Deut. xv, 22, 23.) 

Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, 
Wherein have we robbed thee ? In tithes and offerings. 
(Mai. iii, 8.) 

But woe unto you, Pharisees ! for ye tithe mint and rue 
and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love 
of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
undone. (Luke xi, 42.) 

And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive 
the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes 
of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, 
though they come out of the loins of Abraham. (Heb. vii, 5.) 



CHAPTER III. 



The Hebrew, Mohammedan, and Mormon 
Systems. 

THERE is no intention by bringing these names 
together as the title of a chapter to coordinate 
them as religious systems. The relationship be- 
tween Judaism and Mohammedanism is every- 
where understood. The men of both faiths claim 
descent from Abraham ; the first through Isaac, 
the second through Ishmael, son of the bond- 
woman. The Mormons claim to represent the ten 
lost tribes, and though the claim is absurd, and 
their faith the veriest travesty upon the simple 
monotheism of the Hebrews, yet it will explain why 
several of their ethical duties and precepts are 
copied from the Mosaic law. 

It is to the credit of Mohammed, rude, uncultured, 
and half-fanatical as he was, that he hit upon and 
adopted as his own, from the Christian and the 
Hebrew, the two basal elements of strength in 
Mohammedanism — monotheism and tithing. Ming- 
ling with the people at the great fairs and festivals 
he must have noticed the superiority of the Jewish 
and Christian classes. Degraded and contaminated 
by error as both were, the ''prophet " noted the learn- 
ing and manners of the Christians and ascribed it to 
monotheism. He observed also the temporal pros- 
perity and business sagacity of the Hebrews, and 
justly ascribing it to their practice of the offering of 



26 Concerning the Collection. 



first fruits and tithing, he referred the plan to 
Abraham and insisted on the same practice. 

The Mormon adopted two things also from the 
Hebrew. The polygamous practices of the Latter 
Day Saints, like those of Mohammedans, are always 
referred to the permission given by the faith of 
Abraham. The dominant sensualism of both Mo- 
hammed and Joseph Smith did not permit them to 
see that there was an inherent weakness in polyg- 
amy. Neither seems to have reflected that the 
example of the patriarchs had fallen into desuetude, 
and that the Jews, like the Christians, were in fact 
monogamists. Smith, like Mohammed, however, 
had worldly wisdom enough to place his new re- 
ligion on a firm financial basis. He adopted tithing, 
and the prosperity in the things of this world of 
his coreligionists was thus assured. One of their 
bishops was appointed as tithing officer, and while 
the individual grew enormously wealthy the col- 
lective body was able to build in the desert by the 
Great Salt Lake notable public buildings, and pre- 
pare the appointments of luxurious worship. 

In the main, then, the systems of finance in each, 
even to methods of expenditure, is the same. We 
shall specify briefly the method of gathering funds, 
and the objects upon which the proceeds are ex- 
pended. 

i. First Fruits. — There are more than thirty 
references in the sacred writings to the custom of 
dedicating to God the first born of the family, who 
was redeemed with a money payment, the first born 
of the flock, and the first produce of the land. Some 
of these references have a spiritual rather than a 



Systems. 



27 



temporal meaning, and yet the fact that they have 
in them the germ of spiritual illustration would show- 
that the meaning of the phrase must have been well 
understood. The dedication of Samuel is one of the 
numerous examples of the custom, and the story of 
the widow of Zarephath, to whom Elijah was sent at 
the drying up of Cherith. is a beautiful example of 
the same. She brought him the first cake, follow- 
ing the Hebrew habit of giving to the Lord the first 
fruits. 

There is a beautiful suggestion in this custom 
when it is recalled that the first fruits were regarded 
only as a first installment of God's blessings. Others 
richer were sure to follow, therefore, the first could, 
with the happiest confidence, be given to him, 
and it became a part of the law, and was cele- 
brated in one of the great annual festivals. One 
of the evidences of the decadence of the national 
spirit and virtue was the decline of this offering. 
The covetousness of the people, so evident at the 
coming of Christ, made them reluctant to comply 
with this obligation. The offerings were frequently 
delayed and had practically fallen into disuse in 
Nehemiah's time. 

The offering of first fruits was customary among 
both Mohammedans and Mormons. The details are 
meager so far as it relates to Mohammedans, and 
concealed under the almost burdensome system of 
almsgiving. The Mormon history furnishes frequent 
mention of its practice, willingly or unwillingly, on 
the part of the devotees of that strange sect. 

2. Tithing. — Moses was not the originator of the 
tithe system. There are two prominent instances in 



28 Concerning the Collection. 



the Bible which antedate the Mosaic legislation, 
the first when Abraham, returning from his vic- 
tory over certain kings, gave to Melchizedec, an 
Amorite king, the tenth of the spoil taken in battle. 
This strange figure, the head of an isolated tribe, 
which had retained pure and uninterrupted relations 
with God, in blessing the new departure in religious 
method led by Abraham, receives an offering from 
him. In amount it was a tenth, and thus without 
assigning any reason for the particular portion, we 
are carried back to a primitive system probably 
centuries old even then. Jacob, after the vision at 
Beth-el, pledges himself to live in conformity with 
what would seem to have been a familiar vow. 
Should he return to his own land and kindred in 
safety he pledges himself to dedicate one tenth of 
his income to God. He promises to perform his 
known duty regarding the tenth. 

During the revival under Hezekiah it is recorded 
that "The children of Israel brought in abundance 
the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and 
of all the increase of the field ; and the tithe of all 
things brought they in abundantly" (2 Chron. xxxi, 5). 
Later the prophet Malachi asks the startling question, 
""Will a man rob God ? " And follows it with the 
splendid promise beginning, " Bring ye all the 
tithes into the storehouse" (Mai. iii, 10). That the 
custom continued to Christ's time is beyond ques- 
tion. The single statement of our Lord, "Ye pay 
tithes of mint and anise and cummin, ' ' being sufficient 
proof if it were needed (Matt, xxiii, 23). Josephus re- 
cords that Jews, separated by long distances from 
the Holy City, were usually mindful of this duty. 



Systems. 



29 



Numerous instances like these are to be found in 
the practice of heathen nations. Greeks, Romans, 
Carthaginians, and Arabians of later date frequently- 
devoted tenths of general property, spoils, or com- 
mercial profit to the temple of a deity, or as a re- 
ward to a successful general. 

The Mosaic legislation perfects and inaugurates 
tithing as a system. The Levitical requirement was 
that one tenth in kind be given, and this is re- 
inforced and extended by the code in Deuteronomy. 
The authorities differ as to the details of the law in 
practice, but all agree that one tenth was the mini- 
mum, and that it went for the support of the Levites. 
From this offering the Levite himself must give one 
tenth for holy uses. There was another one tenth 
for festival purposes to be eaten at least every third 
year with the poor, and was entirely independent 
of the freewill offerings which were large in many 
cases, and must have greatly increased the per cent 
of contribution. 

This law has been copied by both Mohammedan 
and Mormon. Along with prayers and fasting the 
Arabian prophet, under the guise of almsgiving, 
proscribed a rigid system of tithes. 

The commands of the Koran to charity are fre- 
quent and positive. It says, "Who prays to God 
and pays his poor-tax (alms) . . . these are the 
really pious, these are the God-fearing." Like 
prayer and fasting almsgiving is no merit, but is a 
simple duty, and to fail to perform it is to deserve 
the anger of God and men. The law is not observed 
unless one tenth is bestowed, and if any extortion 
has been practiced one fifth must be yielded. Tax- 



30 Concerning the Collection. 



able articles are fruits of the field, domestic animals, 
silver, gold, and merchandise lying with the owner 
a year. 

The Mormon exactions are even more strenuous. 
The chief duty impressed by the bishops on the saints 
is the prompt payment of their timings, and their 
official publications are full of exhortations to the 
fulfillment of that indispensible obligation. 

It is significant that the expenditure of money in 
each of these three systems is for objects very simi- 
lar. These may be grouped under four heads : Aid 
to the poor, aid of distressed travelers, erection of 
temples, mosques, schools, and hospitals, and mis- 
sionary enterprises. 

i. Aid to the Poor. — ''The poor shall never cease 
out of thy land," said Moses, and human experience 
cannot discredit the statement. These religions 
have comparatively little to reproach themselves for 
in regard to treatment of the poor. Neither system 
would find a comparison with Christianity bringing 
to light unfavorable facts. One cannot but admire 
the modern Jew, who seems to feel a strange yearn- 
ing for his poverty-stricken kindred, and the boast 
is almost true that there are no Jewish paupers. If 
there are, only infrequently are they compelled to 
cast themselves on the charity of Christians. The 
one ray of light that shines out amid the almost 
hopeless poverty, filth, and degradation of lands 
under control of the Crescent in modern times is 
that charity is not doubtfully, or grudgingly doled out 
to suppliants, but the small boon of an alms is freely 
granted by the poor to the poorer still. Climate and 
simple habits have aided both Mohammedan and 



Systems. 



3* 



Mormon in their relief, but the poor fund has greatly 
aided to ameliorate the condition of the poor. 

2. Distressed Travelers. — The traveler on a jour- 
ney to Jerusalem, or on one of the great pilgrim- 
ages to Mecca, or pushing across the western plains 
to Utah in Mormon company, never fails to find 
aid for his journey in the men of his own faith. 
It is creditable to the Jew that his hands are open 
to one who is seeking lovely Zion, the city of his 
fathers, and there is a pathos in the charity freely 
thrown to swarms of pilgrims to the tomb of the 
prophet whose one wish, too often realized, is to see 
Mecca and then die. Most have seen one of the 
train loads of ignorant foreigners, not so frequent of 
late, assisted to the new Zion erected in the great 
desert. All illustrate the same custom. 

3. General Religions Purposes. — Under this the 
temples, mosques, schools, and hospitals deserve 
mention. The Mormon temple, not worthy of com- 
parison with the stately temple upon Moriah, is yet 
illustrative, like Solomon's house, of the enormous 
sum of money put at the disposal of the priesthood by 
the tithing system. The Mohammedans obtained 
many of their mosques from Christian countries by 
conquest, but the great schools at Constantinople and 
Cairo witness the use of alms for educational pur- 
poses, and the Hebrew charities which are carried 
on in almost every large city of the world make 
them second only to the Christian system in philan- 
thropy. ' 

4. Missionary Enterprises. — The immense sums 
expended for proselytism by these faiths exceeds 
proportionately the Christian gifts for the same 



32 Concerning the Collection. 



purposes. They are all missionary religions. The 
Austrian empire has recently passed an act per- 
mitting proselytes to the Jewish faith— an act ren- 
dered necessary by the Judaizing Greeks and 
Romanists. Christ but reflected the spirit of the 
faith of his people when he said, 44 Ye compass sea 
and land to make one proselyte." In India, in the 
interior of Asia, on the Nile, and in Central Africa, 
Mohammedanism is to-day the rival of Christianity. 
The Christian is turned back from some lands open 
to the followers of Mohammed. It is with its 
strange babble, 44 There is no god but God, and Mo- 
hammed is his prophet," one of the three great 
catholic religions. Buddhism has never succeeded 
in winning converts outside of the great Mongol 
race, but Mohammedanism has overleaped the 
boundaries of nations and races, and aims at con- 
verting the world. Missions are a great feature of 
Mormonism. Any member of the priesthood is 
liable to be sent at the call of the president on the 
shortest notice 44 to preach the gospel to the Gen- 
tiles." They enlist restless, enterprising spirits who 
might perhaps threaten disturbance at home, and 
utilize their fanaticism by sending them on distant 
evangelizing errands — merchant, artisan, mechanic, 
farmer, or plowboy must go and do the best he can. 
Besides continental Europe and the Southern States, 
where often they are reported by the daily press as 
driven out of certain communities, they have sent 
missionaries to Ceylon, China, Hindoostan, West 
Indies, Guiana, and Chili. Multitudes of converts 
from the Scandinavian mission have come to 
strengthen Zion. 



Systems. 33 

We enter into no explanation of the motives 
which incite both Mohammedan and 'Mormon to 
their propagandism, and but recite facts. There is 
no catholicity in the work of the Mormon. They 
mar the stability of their own future by making 
proselytes to a visible Church instead of converts to 
God and a higher intellectual and spiritual life. So 
do the Mohammedans. .They ask for conformity 
rather than conversion. They seek subjects rather 
than converts. This is the common fault of secta- 
rianism, and Jew and Christian have too often 
come under the same condemnation. The fact re- 
mains that the Jew, Mohammedan, and Mormon 
have the missionary spirit, and the strongest financial 
basis for maintaining old and entering upon new 
proselyting enterprises is their system of tithing. 
3 



* 



Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would 
borrow of thee turn not thou away. (Matt, v, 42.) 

And all that believed were together, and had all things 
common. And the multitude of them that believed were of one 
heart and of one soul : neither said any of them that aught of 
the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all 
things common. (Acts ii, 44 ; iv, 32.) 

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let 
him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a 
cheerful giver. (2 Cor. ix, 7.) 

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet 
lackest thou one thing : sell all that thou hast, and distribute 
unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and 
come, follow me. (Luke xviii, 22.) 

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given 
order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first 
day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God 
hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. 
(1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2.) 

Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses ; Nor 
scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor 
yet staves : for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into 
whatsoever city or town ^e shall enter, inquire who in it is 
worthy ; and there abide till ye go thence. (Matt, x, 9-11,) 

He that receiveth you receiveth me ; and he that receiveh 
me receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in 
the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward ; and he 
that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man 
shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall 
give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water 
only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in 
no wise lose his reward. (Matt, x, 40-42.) 



CHAPTER IV. 



Men and Money in the Christian System. 

STRANGE as it may seem, when we search 
through the methods of giving which constitute 
the Christian system, we find that they lack the def- 
initeness of the Jewish and kindred systems. Some 
affirm that the tithing requirement, like other speci- 
fications of the law of Moses, has never been abro- 
gated, and that it is equally binding in our day. If 
so, the quotation and context which bear this inter- 
pretation in the New Testament ought to be at once 
pointed out. Certainly the human heart needs to 
be softened by generosity as much to-day as ever, 
and if the tithing law exists, and would assist in at- 
taining this purpose, it ought to be widely heralded. 

It should not be forgotten for a moment, however, 
that more money is needed under the Christian dis- 
pensation than under the Mosaic economy. The 
methods adopted for the extension of Christ's king- 
dom grow out of the command at Bethany, "Go ye 
and disciple all nations." The Jewish propagandist 
never dreamed of such an enterprise as the world's 
conversion. They fondly anticipated the advent of a 
Messiah who would accomplish for them what they 
dared not attempt to accomplish for themselves. 
We belong to the Messianic kingdom, and our wider 
hope and more extended enterprises require more 
of the sinews of war. The Jewish plan is inade- 
quate to meet the Christian demand. For Christians 



36 Concerning the Collection. 



whose giving would be increased by tithing, it may 
have an educational value to hold up to them the 
standard of bygone days. It should always be 
understood also, that the Christian system has no 
definite commands about giving or believing. None 
can say, as Christians, what the rich young ruler 
could say as a Jew, " All of these have I kept from 
my youth up." It would simplify the system 'could 
we point to a definite or fixed multiplicand or 
divisor. St. Paul, who presses the subject of giving 
it two whole chapters of Second Corinthians, no- 
where says give one tenth. But we think that this 
complexity and perplexity with liberty is better than 
literalism with the formality which always accom- 
panies it. As faith in Christ is not obtained by re- 
peating a creed, so the Christian duty of giving can- 
not be determined by arithmetical computation. 

Let us look at some passages. 44 Give to him that 
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee 
turn not thou away. ' ' Some say, a prominent present- 
day evangelist among them, that this is to be interpret- 
ed literally. Give him what he asks. His request be- 
comes a draft upon your Lord's treasury, committed 
to your keeping, and to fail to honor it is to dishonor 
God. Every prodigal who has squandered his own, 
and therefore his father's substance, may, under 
this rule, continue to waste the common patrimony. 
This is literalism which makes confusion worse con- 
founded, and would kill half the children in the town 
to-morrow. I do not give my child a hammer 
with which to break a mirror, nor drugs that would 
end his life in a half hour, nor does it end my re- 
sponsibility to say that the child asked for it. To 



The Christian System. 



57 



grant, without investigation, a single one of the 
multitudinous requests that are made every day upon 
the streets would be putting a premium upon hypoc- 
risy. You will come nearer answering the respon- 
sibility put upon you by investigating the case, and 
if the claimant proves an impostor, to have him ar- 
rested. 

' ' Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor. ' ' 
That staggers any system, but the context shows 
that this is a special command, made to show the 
self-sufficient young ruler how insufficient is all 
righteousness merely of the law. Then, too, the 
command was preparatory to a special discipleship. 
It was a test of obedience and self-sacrifice. Paul 
well said afterward, "The kingdom of God is not 
meat and drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost." Whoever would seek it 
must begin his search with a single heart, uncon- 
cerned about property or friends, and no one is worthy 
of apostleship until he can do that. 

"And had all things common." This is a tak- 
ing present-day question. It falls glibly from the 
lips of agitators. As recorded in the Acts, the selling 
of houses and lands was a voluntary, not a compul- 
sory, act. In this record of the primitive Church, 
Peter's words to Ananias recognized that property 
belonged to individuals, and that they might keep it 
or sell it as they chose. It is to be noted also that 
this communistic movement was concurrent with a 
great spiritual uplift and awakening. The context 
mentions that they were full of the Holy Ghost, and 
with this baptism of the Spirit there came a new 
conception of the obligations of property, and the 



38 Concerning the Collection. 



beginning of that splendid " mercy and help " work 
which characterized the early Church. Revivals 
always increase generosity. It has happened in our 
own day that men and women devoted their entire 
property to holy uses. Professor Pearson has stated 
the whole case in the following beautiful lines : 

" Rarely has faith o'er sense a full constraint, 
Or grace the trophy of a wealthy saint ; 
Yet once again this miracle we hail 
As many millioned Drexel takes the veil." 

But this method of producing generosity is as far 
as the antipodes from the idea of the barroom states- 
men, who propose constraint to produce socialism. 

1 . Love for Christ is the inspiration and measure 
of Christian giving, Let this be carefully pondered, 
and more frequently stated. The most tender and 
melting and persuasive of all arguments is "for 
Jesus' sake." 

" Teach me, my God and King, 

In all things thee to see ; 
And what I do in anything, 

To do it as for thee." 

The love of Christ is too great for mathematical 
expression. It is beyond definition, and eludes even 
the grasp of human speech. It is a general principle 
needing a life for its expression, rather than any 
particular rule. The Christian loves, and therefore 
wishes to do something to express his love. This 
often requires that his life should be one of the most 
rigorous self-denial, but mingled with it there will 
always be faith and earnest love. This will not 
appeal to selfish people found the world over, 
among the rich as well as poor. There are hard 



The Christian System. 



39 



hearts under all kinds of coats. Other motives ap- 
peal to those who are not Christians, such as force 
of conscience, preaching the obligation of an ancient 
law, contagion of public feeling, rivalry in a public 
assembly, the desire to escape odium or to win ap- 
plause, to get the reputation of benevolence or for 
political advancement. For my own part I would 
prefer men to give for these reasons, rather than 
that they should not give at all, but the holier 
motive of affection for Christ is the hinge upon 
which the charity and philanthropy of the Church 
swings. 

The Love of Christ is the Measure of our Giv- 
ing, as well as its Inspiration. 

•Some, like the Jew or Mormon, would find in 
the amount of our possessions the measure of our 
giving. Others would make their gifts proportionate 
to the needs of the work. The worldly minded are 
apt to be governed in their offerings by what some 
one else does, so that persistent effort is made to 
find some one who will give the subscription list a 
good start. Neither of these standards, but love 
only, determines in the Christian system. That 
sinful Mary, who came to the house of Simon to 
anoint the feet of Jesus, will serve as an illustration. 
She brought ointment very precious, which Judas 
said was worth five hundred pence. In carrying out 
her purpose she does more than was at first intended. 
At the sight of Jesus she was overwhelmed by 
emotions of shame, sorrow, love, and fear. She 
came to anoint him, but it was only after a flood of 
passionate tears, more precious than spikenard, that 



4o Concerning the Collection. 



she grew calm enough to perform the intended act 
of homage. Love multiplied her offering a hundred- 
fold, and increased it from a bodily ministry to 
spiritual adoration and worship. Simon, the host, 
who had invited Jesus, gave less than he had in- 
tended. He probably meant to attend scrupulously 
to the duties of hospitality, but he loved little, and this 
made him unmindful of the little courtesies Jesus 
had a right to expect. Mary, through love, did 
more than she intended, and Simon, through lack of 
love, did less. 

Love gives us insight into the work. It shows how 
and when and where to give. It makes the labor 
of directing attention to objects of proper benevo- 
lence easy. Love to Christ makes us devoutly and 
sincerely grateful to anyone who shows us how to 
do something unselfish and effective by giving. 

2. The second element in the Christian system of 
giving is intelligence. We are all too prone to put 
money where it will produce immediate and direct 
beneficence. Intelligence must be added to com- 
passion. We should like to give every beggar food 
and clothing, and help every good cause which 
passes the collection box. The monks did that at 
the monastery gate when they gave daily a dole of 
food. The same people came day after day to get 
it, and the land was full of sturdy beggars. By and 
by the Church became more intelligent, and it was 
discovered that the evils of the method overbalanced 
many of its benefits, and it was abandoned. Kitchen- 
door philanthropy has never reached much further. 
It is charity to refuse to aid some causes. To pay a 
preacher's salary in some communities, that the 



The Christian System. 



4i 



stingy citizens may go on hoarding, is no charity. 
It is intelligent charity sometimes to invest money 
in a paying business. The returns of the invest- 
ment are for the Lord. All honor to the people of 
large means who thoughtfully and prayerfully give 
largely. The same honor to people of small means 
who give ten times more, as God sees it. 

The intelligence absolutely indispensable to the 
Christian is lacking in those who give nothing. 
This is the practice of too many. They are neces- 
sarily mean people. To give extravagantly to 
further some quixotic impulse of your community 
is also sin. In either case a personal sense of re- 
sponsibility, the product of thoughtfulness, is lacking. 
We need intelligence to plan the use of money 
wisely, to discriminate between real and apparent 
need, and to manage our affairs in a businesslike 
manner. 

3. Fidelity follows from love and intelligence. 
This fidelity will require regular offerings every 
week in proportion to ability. Were there no 
Scripture authority the Church would still have 
come to proportionate giving. What hours are 
spent by the great manufacturers to determine the 
respective sums to be used for repairs, for ad- 
vertising, for improved machinery, for insurance, 
dividends, and in other ways ! Unless you divorce 
business from religion, the Christian capitalist must 
enter into every detail of his giving with the same 
exactitude. Order, system, and promptness are be- 
coming to all of God's stewards. This fidelity will 
appear at crucial times also. Steadfastness in giv- 
ing, while financial storms sweep the country, is a 



42 Concerning the Collection. 

test of sincerity and a proof of love. Only a Chris- 
tian can say, in the midst of temporal reverses, " I 
am glad I endowed that college, or that hospital, in 
times of prosperity. That much at least is saved." 

The money part of this chapter is more easily 
ended than the men. The foregoing applies equally 
to both. But the larger truth remains ; we do not 
so much need improved systems of giving as a 
higher type of givers. There can be no new phi- 
lanthropy, but the cry sounds from every corner of 
the globe for new philanthropists. Every day ad- 
ditional emphasis must be placed upon the man. 
The personal element must be reconsidered. With- 
out any effort or intent to discourage systems or in- 
stitutions, it grows plainer every day that an organ- 
ization can be Christian and effective only when the 
mechanism is subordinated to the man. The greatest 
gift of all is the man himself. The Church needs 
anxiety, lest the number and character of those who 
rise to the supreme nobility of self-giving should de- 
crease. This benefaction includes all others. This 
is the gift which every truehearted minister and 
missionary is compelled to make, and all such should 
know that what they are not permitted to provide for 
themselves God's people will provide for them. 

In sending forth his disciples, Christ enunciated 
three points which should reinforce the faith of 
every self-giver, of every watchman on Zion's 
walls, whether on the plan of self-support in Chile, 
or under the auspices of the parent missionary 
board. Let it encourage those who meditate upon 
so high a calling and gift. (1.) 4 4 The workman is 
worthy of his meat." If you, and the church to 



The Christian System. 43 



which you belong, abundantly supply these wants, 
you indorse the promise of our blessed Lord. (2.) 
"Into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, in- 
quire who in it is worthy ; and there abide till ye 
go thence." Christ took it for granted that in every 
place there was at least one good man to welcome 
the King's messengers. Let timid, wandering 
servants of God remind themselves that even in 
Sodom there was a Lot. (3.) Christ insured good 
treatment of his disciples by the high premium put 
upon all acts of kindness done to disciples. " He 
that receiveth you receiveth me. . . . And even a 
cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple shall 
not lose its reward." By such terms your Lord has 
insured a reception for you. Let us not therefore 
hesitate to give ourselves. 



The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunt- 
ing : but the substance of a diligent man is precious. (Prov. 
xii, 27.) 

Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand 
before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men. (Prov. 
xxii, 29.) 

Ye have sown much, and bring in little ; ye eat, but ye have 
not enough ; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink ; ye 
clothe you, but there is none warm ; and he that earneth wages, 
earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. (Hag. i, 6.) 

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is 
that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. 
(Prov. xi, 24.) 

The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the 
soul of the diligent shall be made fat. (Prov. xiii, 4.) 

Not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord. 
(Rom. xii, 11.) 

For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any 
hire for beasts; neither was there any peace to him that went 
out or came in because of the affliction : for I set all men every 
one against his neighbor. (Zech. viii, 10.) 

Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a 
taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that in- 
creaseth that which is not his ! how long ? and to him that lad- 
eth himself with thick clay ! (Hab. ii, 6.) 



CHAPTER V. 



John Wesley's Scheme of Finance. 

IT may be doubted whether any of the great quali- 
ties of John Wesley have received so little atten- 
tion as his business methods and maxims. He is 
recognized everywhere as a preeminent scholar — 
could always quote his texts from memory in the 
Greek. He is known as one of the greatest preach- 
ers since St. Paul ; as a logician of the most in- 
cisive sort ; not inferior to Richelieu in executive 
qualities, and with a genius for organization like 
Loyola. As a revivalist, philanthropist, and church- 
man he had no contemporary who was his equal, 
and he has no successor. The greatest marvel 
about the man was his many-sidedness. 

In a general way it is known -that he laid empha- 
sis on financial support to the newly organized 
societies, and that early Methodism has been hap- 
pily termed " Sanctification and a penny a week." 
It is also known that he gave away all his income. 
He said, " Do not increase your substance. As it 
comes to you daily and yearly so let it go." But 
more than the preaching, he practiced it, so that 
when reproved by the assessor for not reporting his 
silver plate for purposes of taxation he could 
honestly say, " My silver plate consists of two 
spoons and a porridge bowl, and I shall not 
purchase more while my countrymen are suffering 
for bread." The London circuit paid him £30 per 



46 Concerning the Collection. 



year. He lived on £28, and gave £2 away. The 
income from the immense publishing house which 
he built up all went to charity save an occasional 
suit of clothes purchased from its returns. This 
whole business he left absolutely to the Church, 
save a charge of £85 a year upon it for the care of 
his brother's widow and children. He died as he 
had lived, without a purse, and left the little sum in 
his pockets and bureau drawers for four Methodist 
preachers. It is not commonly known that he was 
the author of the lines : 

" No foot of land do I possess, 
No cottage in this wilderness, 

A poor wayfaring man. 
I lodge a while in tents below ; 
Or gladly wander to and fro 

Till I my Canaan gain. 

" Nothing on earth I call my own, 
A stranger, to the world unknown, 

I all their goods despise; 
I trample on their whole delight, 
And seek a country out of sight, 

A country in the skies." 

That John Wesley had financial genius of a high 
order is not so generally understood. He had, like 
some men of our day, as Austin Phelps has said, 
gold in his blood. His device of begging £50 and 
loaning it to the needy in sums of less than twenty 
shillings at a low rate of interest, and insisting upon 
its prompt repayment at the end of three months, is 
a benevolent plan worthy of more frequent modern 
imitation. Certain philanthropic loan companies, 
chartered by the last Legislature of the State of 



John Wesley's Scheme of Finance. 47 



New York to protect the poor against extortionate 
rates of interest, were anticipated by John Wesley 
one hundred and twenty-five years ago. This is 
the basal idea upon which our educational funds 
are now administered. Among those who re- 
ceived aid from the first fund founded by Wesley 
was the well-known Lackington, the cobbler, who 
with the slight capital thus obtained, laid the 
foundations of a business that eighteen years after 
produced an annual income of $25,000 

His scheme for raising chapel debts, in 1767, 
would be unique even in our own times, for it aimed 
to reach every Methodist in the connection for a con- 
tribution varying from one to ten dollars. It was a 
remarkable plan in another way, as it actually pro- 
duced the sum total expected of it. The subscrip- 
tions for the churches at Bristol (the first church 
building), Plymouth, and Bath were all taken as a 
certain small amount to be paid weekly or monthly. 
It was the business of the leaders to collect these 
subscriptions, and lest they should grow derelict in 
their financial duties, his practice was to change 
them every six months at least. He did not allow 
class leaders and stewards to continue in office 
twenty-five years. All of the above incidents will 
serve to illustrate his financial genius. 

He held money in high esteem. There is only one 
thing which he regarded superior to it, and that was 
manhood. After the great missionary collection in 
1767, for the conversion of the Indians in North 
America, which he had urged with the greatest en- 
thusiasm, he made an entry in his journal that is 
worth pondering by all Methodists, and by all mis- 



48 Concerning the Collection. 



sionary societies and secretaries in our day: "A 
large sum of money is now collected, but will money 
convert heathens ? Find preachers of David 
Brainerd's spirit, and nothing can stand before 
them. But without this what will gold or silver 
do ? " Nowadays we spend our time raising money, 
and let men offer themselves as their individual 
wish or failure at home may indicate. If one of our 
missionary secretaries could employ himself in 
seeking out annually a dozen men like some of those 
who have devoted themselves to mission work in 
the last twenty years, the net results would be greater 
to the Church than any proposed increase in the 
collections. The mission field is no place for any but 
the best educated and most thoroughly successful 
men in the Church. Men of low attainments would 
better remain at home. John Wesley had a con- 
ception that would save time and patience and 
money to the Church. There must be men of fiber 
and nerve and consecration upon whom to spend 
our missionary money. The same is true of the 
woman's work, and of all work. But after men 
there is nothing better than money. Men and 
money ought to be more frankly and freely dis- 
cussed than they are. 

John Wesley's scheme of finance is definitely 
laid down in his three sermons on "The Uses of 
Money," "The Good Steward," and " The More 
Excellent Way." The latter would make startling 
reading for the worldly minded, and yet it sets forth 
the habit of his own life. In the sermon on "The 
Good Steward," he states his high opinion of money 
in the following sentences : "In the present state of 



John Wesley's Scheme of Finance. 49 

mankind it is an excellent gift of God, answering 
the noblest ends. In the hands of his children it is 
food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment 
for the naked ; it gives to the traveler and the 
stranger where to lay his head. By it we may 
supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a 
father to the fatherless. We may be a defense to 
the oppressed ; a means of health to the sick ; of 
ease to them that are in pain ; it may be as eyes to 
the blind, as feet to the lame ; yea, a lifter up from 
the gates of death." He evidently was out of 
sympathy with those who rail at money as the 
" corrupter of the world, the bane of virtue, the pest 
of society," for in the sermon on ''The Uses of 
Money " he writes, "Above all He has committed 
to our charge that precious talent which contains all 
the rest — money. It is unspeakably precious if we are 
wise and faithful stewards of it." That we who fear 
God may know how to employ this valuable talent, 
and that we may be instructed how it may best sub- 
serve these noble ends, he reduced his maxims to 
one terse epigrammatiastatement, as surprising as it 
is terse, as logical and Christian as it is practical. 
It is a perfect cube of financial conduct : " Earn all 
you can ; save all you can ; give all you can." 

" Earn All You Can." — From any point of view 
this commends itself to all. So far, at least, we shall 
allow that he speaks like the children of this world. 
We must meet the world on its own ground, and in 
that vague and somewhat undetermined place 
called "the markets of the world," we are to dis- 
pose of our brain, wit, brawn, or deft fingers at the 
4 



5o Concerning the Collection. 



highest possible price. It is absurd to claim that, all 
other things being equal, a clergyman shall not go 
where he will be best paid ; and to deny by injunction 
the right of a laborer to quit working and find another 
employer who will pay him better is not only op- 
posed to John Wesley's maxim, but to common 
sense. He would limit the " gain all " of course to 
honest accumulations. Over-reaching and " using 
many words in buying and selling " are plainly 
opposed to the Christian system. Without, how- 
ever, dwarfing ourselves in mind, or injuring our 
bodies ; without detriment to our neighbor, or un- 
patriotism in the State, we are to " earn all we can." 
No man has a right to be an idler. No man has a 
right to be unemployed. It is the business of all to go 
into yonder county, or town, or city, and either reap 
or sow, or buy and sell and get gain. By experience 
and reading and reflection we should qualify our- 
selves to be workers in the great hive of humanity. 
This scheme of Wesley's is far-reaching, and it 
should liberalize our judgment of men who have 
rapidly accumulated wealth. It is the duty of some 
men to be rich. They have the peculiar talent of 
acquiring wealth, and only a contracted conscience 
would forbid their efforts to develop it. It is to their 
shame if they do not earn large sums, and receive 
great returns from their investments. 

" Save All You Can." — Could any modern econ- 
omist give a more needed exhortation. Having 
" earned all you can," it is a reproach upon you if 
much of it, or at least some of it, is not husbanded, 
as the capital or resource for some larger enterprise. 



John Wesley's Scheme of Finance. 51 



Many could benefit by this phrase. Five hundred 
dollars a year income, and $499 expenditures is 
affluence. The same income and $1 living ex- 
penses above it is poverty. The Church and Society 
are full of men and women who live every year 
beyond their means. The ratio of income to ex- 
penditure should always exceed the unit, and ulti- 
mate disaster, and perhaps dishonor and disgrace 
will follow fast where this is not true. Simple thrift 
and a revival of the homely saving methods of some 
of our fathers is too much needed to-day. It may 
be smart to throw down a dollar and say, " Keep the 
change," but it is more commendable to insist that 
the proper change, even to the famous New 
Englander's penny, should be made. Instead of 
scoffing at the "penny business," even the Cali- 
fornian will be compelled to cease his boast that the 
smallest coin in current circulation is the " two-bit " 
piece. Stores where they make only nickel change 
will be compelled to go out of business. Thrift, 
economy, saving, from your income, and by small 
gatherings are all a part of religion. It cultivates 
self-restraint, and the power to judicially estimate 
the value of any article offered for sale. 

4 ' Give All You Can. " — Mammon worshipers could 
indorse the first two clauses of the Wesley epigram. 
They will probably pause here. But if so, they will 
miss the only purpose their earning and saving can 
have. "There are no pockets in a shroud," and 
these hard earned and slowly gathered accumula- 
tions cannot be taken to that "undiscovered 
country." It is the rule, and a rule with few ex- 



52 Concerning the Collection. 

ceptions, that excessive amounts of money left to 
children weaken the motives to industry and 
economy, and become an obstacle to that best qf all 
medicines, work. It would be salvation to many a 
spendthrift if on the morning of his twenty-first 
birthday he was compelled to toe the mark and 
begin to " hoe his own row." In hundreds of cases 
fortunes are sure to be dissipated. It is a homely 
maxim, but none the less true, that " it is only 
three generations from shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve." 
Somewhere along the line of the inheritors of great 
wealth there will come a prodigal who will waste 
the substance, and the line will be compelled to 
begin by the sweat of some successor the founda- 
tions of a new fortune. 

Gain and save in order that you may give. Men 
are forever getting ready to give. They resolve, 
and re-resolve ; make a will and tear it up, and make 
it again, and the chances are that they die the same. 
By the time that courts and residuary legatees have 
finished with their litigation and fixed charges there 
is little for the beneficiaries. The perfection of this 
Wesleyan scheme is found only in the constant 
practice of these three rules. There is a giving that 
does not impoverish. 

How shall we give? Systematically by all means. 
We should discourage everywhere in the Church, in 
the Sunday schools, in the chapters of the Epworth 
League fugitive appeals and irregularly taken col- 
lections. The only special collections to be per- 
mitted, or even considered, are those for the regular 
benevolences of the Church. Contributions for these 



John Wesley's Scheme of Finance. 53 

objects were solemnly pledged when we stood at the 
altar rail, and took upon ourselves the vows of 
church membership. Lest perchance some should 
misunderstand, let us call systematic giving tenth- 
ing instead of tithing. Ninety cents for ourselves 
and ten cents for God is the scriptural way. The 
voluntary, weekly method, commended by St. Paul 
to the church at Corinth, cannot be improved upon, 
and let us raise up a generation of men in the Church, 
and women too, who will lay by in store as God has 
prospered them. 

Admit this great rule of John Wesley's and you not 
only supply the money to the embarrassed treasuries 
Qf the Church, but you drive out of the thought of 
some Christian men that some callings are secular 
and some are sacred. It will also aid us, sometimes 
envious and selfish, to thank God that our brethren 
become honorably rich. It is said that around 
Titicacain South America there are a dozen smaller 
lakes which rise or fall with the waters of the 
larger. They all keep the same level and are 
evidently fed from the same perennial fountains. 
Fill Lake Titicaca and you fill all the rest ; as these 
brethren become rich the Church is enriched also. 
We need John Wesley's scheme of finance in the 
world and in the Church to-day. 



For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them 
everyone is given to covetousness ; and from the prophet even 
unto the priest everyone dealeth falsely. (Jer. vi, 13.) 

Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou 
hast withholden bread from the hungry. (Job xxii, 7.) 

Better is a handful with quietness, than both the hands full 
with travail and vexation of spirit. (Eccles. iv, 6.) 

Give, and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed 
down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give 
into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete 
withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke vi, 38.) 

But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of 
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever 
much is given, of him shall be much required ; and to whom 
men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. 
(Luke xii, 48.) 



CHAPTER VI. 



Everyday Principles. 

READERS have made their own inductions from 
the preceding chapters. However, as instruc- 
tion is to be given 44 line upon line," and lest some 
should have hurried through the earlier pages, we 
venture to recast some fundamentals. 

First. Giving is a grace, privilege, or duty, not 
a burden. We are sure that repetition will not dull 
the force and clearness of this point. There is a 
gracefulness in giving. Like some charm of face 
or voice, or like the attractiveness of manner or 
bearing in the person, so giving is a grace to the 
character. The only rebuke that uncharitableness 
should ever have is that it is ungracious. Miser- 
liness is not only selfish, but vulgar. 

Giving is a privilege as well. Without contact 
with the harsh and ugly facts of life we can ameli- 
orate them by our gifts, and thus make a faithful 
and earnest response to the ethical demands upon 
us. By giving, too, you become associated with 
great enterprises in which you could join in no other 
way. Your contribution to the Missionary Society 
carries you back to Bethany, when Christ gave the 
command to disciple all nations, and projects your 
influence forward to the end of time. 

It may be a duty also. It is the province of the 
collector to show that the cause he represents is 
proper, and that in no other way could the money 
be better expended, It thus becomes a duty to 



56 Concerning the Collection. 



give. The poor to be relieved may be in your 
parish. The older or younger members may have 
already done all they can ; a sudden emergency 
may have arisen. All these reasons may be safely 
urged. But too often the matter is proceeded with 
as though it were a burden. There is an air of half 
apology or a hint of supererogation about it. 

Second. Ask for money on the assumption that 
everyone wants to give. Sometimes one might get 
the impression that the members are selfish and 
opinionated, and do not wish to contribute. It is 
necessary that the funds shall be raised, and certain 
men are appointed whose business it is to do it. 
Most of those from whom they solicit have stood at 
the altars of the Church and pledged themselves to 
contribute of their substance, according to their 
ability, for the support of the various benevolent 
enterprises of the Church. Why not remember this, 
and take it for granted that the vow was intelligently 
made and will devotedly be performed? It is not a 
tax which they are called upon to pay ; it is a love 
to which they have to respond. Some, through 
self-will or love of ease or from lack of pure and 
lofty motives, will refuse. Selfish and worldly 
habits, despite our better natures, will still retain a 
strong attraction for us. Nevertheless the appeal 
should be made to the inward, voluntary, and all- 
commanding affection which is professed. 

Third. Even though burdensome it may be a 
blessing. Could we choose for ourselves most of 
us would prefer to have our affairs run prosperously 
and smoothly. We would wish first fruits and 
tithes remitted in our own cases, and for others with 



Everyday Principles. 57 



small incomes as well. So many find it difficult to 
make both ends meet that the apostle's injunction, 
" On the first day of the week let everyone of you 
lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him," 
seems like adding another burden to shoulders al- 
ready grievously laden. And yet we all know that 
men of character are made by struggle. It is the 
battle with adverse conditions, the making the most 
of scanty means which develops sagacity, skill, and 
heart. Burdens of all kinds are blessings in disguise. 
The man with no difficulties, no hardships, no hard, 
tormenting cares, who has enough to live easily 
and luxuriously, is not likely to be even a good man 
of business. For want of a burden he is only too 
likely to leave the straight path. " I never knew a 
man lost on a straight road," said Sultan Akbar, 
and a burden keeps you in the straight path and 
watchful. It brings elevation of spirit, and the 
frugal, temperate, industrious contriver to do some- 
thing for God is a blessing always. 

Fourth. The easiest method of raising money is 
to give it. Finance committees are too apt to set to 
work devising schemes to cajole money out of 
people in spite of themselves. Some of these are on 
the same moral plane as the decoy duck of the 
hunter. In method they are like the deerstalker 
who carries a bell and gives the huntsman an op- 
portunity to bag the game while the deer is listening 
to the sound. These methods vary with commu- 
nities, but are very much alike after all. Sometimes 
it is a pathetic story, or locking the church door and 
calling for subscriptions, or there is a pledge to 
publish the list of subscribers complete in a local 



58 Concerning the Collection. 



paper. Sometimes the ladies get up a fair. The 
plea is at other times reinforced by good fellowship, 
and with concomitants of ice cream and turkey the 
good work goes on. These methods reach a climax 
in some Negro congregations of the South, where 
each individual marches down the aisle of the 
church to deposit his gift upon the altar table. In a 
certain congregation a brother is reported to have 
marched up five times in order to give a quarter — a 
nickel for each visit to the altar rail. All of these 
methods alike serve to diminish respect for the col- 
lection and for the man charged with obtaining the 
funds. We believe in fairs and festivals, in socials 
and lectures, and musicals for social and, inciden- 
tally, for financial reasons. But the easiest way to 
raise money is to ask Christian people for it, and 
the easiest way to get it is to give it outright. 

Fifth. The financial abilities of the young people 
of the Epworth League and other young people's 
societies should be at the command of the Church. 
The expenses of all such organizations should be 
kept at a minimum. What with International, State, 
Conference, presiding elders' district, and subdis- 
trict conventions, and the proper expenses con- 
nected with them, the chapters may become a 
burden of expense instead of financial help. The 
Epworth League is a part of the Church and aux- 
iliary to the Church. The Church is a great deal 
larger institution than any young people's society. 
The baptismal covenant which you have taken for 
membership in the Church is a much more solemn 
and binding obligation than your "pledge." You 
mean the Church when you sing 



Everyday Principles. 



59 



" For her my tears shall fall, 
For her my prayers ascend ; 
To her my cares and toils be given, 
Till toils and cares shall end." 

We devote not only our time and talent and 
love to the Church, but our money also. 

Sixth. The departments of literary work and 
mercy and help ought to absorb the largest amount 
of the income. It should be carefully husbanded for 
these purposes. It is quite proper to participate in 
the reception to the new pastor and similar pleasant 
occasions. But, next to spiritual awakening, in- 
tellectual culture and mercy and help should be 
pushed to their utmost in the Epworth League. 
Money thus spent is well spent, and the fact that it 
is so used will multiply the contributions to your 
treasury. The Chautauqua and Epworth League 
Reading Courses are always worth buying for your 
own and the Sunday school library. Lecture 
courses for entertainment, and on the university ex- 
tension plan for instruction, will always find favor, 
and are worth what they cost. The mercy and help 
department, embracing such great philanthropic 
duties as relief to the poor, hospitals, deaconess 
homes, children's homes, comfort for the sick and 
bereaved, house-to-house visitation, and employ- 
ment bureaus should be pushed beyond anything yet 
dreamed of. Money spent for such objects com- 
mends the chapter to the Church and community. 
It increases the treasury offering in volume also, 
just as the water trickling down the temple wall in 
Ezekiel's vision increased without tributaries to a 
great flood which could not be passed over. 



6o Concerning the Collection. 



And again, basket collections are always in order. 
There is a regular offering made at the devotional 
meetings in many churches. Some congregations 
publicly, and we judge somewhat proudly, announce 
that no collections are taken in their church. Some 
omit it in the evening, presupposing that it serves to 
increase the attendance. How men can trifle with 
duty so imperative passes comprehension. There 
ought to be persons in every service who have not 
been present before. If no collection is taken they 
may possibly come into the church deficient in 
training upon this important matter. In exclusive 
social circles collections are obviously improper. 
They are never taken in clubs ; in churches, always. 



For who hath despised the day of small things? for they 
shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerub- 
babel with those seven ; they are the eyes of the Lord, which 
run to and fro through the whole earth. (Zech. iv, 10.) 

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept ; 
line upon line, line upon line ; here a little, and there a little. 
(Isa. xxviii, 10.) 



CHAPTER VII. 



Don'ts and Do's for the Department of Finance. 

MANY things included in this brief chapter are 
so well understood that perhaps some will 
think they should have been omitted. The 
simplest things have to be learned by everybody, 
learned every year by somebody, and by each of us 
for himself. If we can inculcate some easy lessons 
here, and spare anyone a training in the hard school 
of experience, it will be well worth the while. 

1 . Do not allow a public mass meeting to go by 
without a collection. Strangers and visitors will 
appreciate their duty to the Epworth League more 
should they afterward join. Report the amount of 
the collection before the meeting adjourns if you 
possibly can, especially at a week-night service. 

2. Do not have a fee for admission to member- 
ship. The Epworth League is not a secret society. 
Some may be kept out by it. 

3. Have regular weekly or monthly dues. Weekly 
dues are preferable. It is an education in system- 
atic giving. Have envelopes for inclosing it. The 
envelope returned will serve for a receipt. One or 
two cents a week, or five or ten cents a month, are 
the ordinary dues. Urge payment every week or 
month, as the case may be. 

4. Do not have dues and fail to collect them. 
Ask for them at least. Insist that the treasurer at- 
tend to this promptly. 



64 Concerning the Collection. 



5. Urge tithing. This can be done by circulating 
tithing pledge cards. If you cannot find a better, 
reprint the one found in this book. 

6. Circulate tracts and books on giving. Long- 
acre's New York Conference Missionary Sermon, 
Mister Horn and His Friends, John Wesley's Scheme 
of Finance, Thanksgiving Ann, and Tracts Nos. 1 
and 2 in the " Christian Giving Series " are examples. 

7. Do not be afraid to take collections for Mis- 
sions, Freedmen's Aid, or Church Extension on the 
request of your pastor. 

8. Make it your business to see that every mem- 
ber of the chapter contributes regularly to the sup- 
port of the church and the regular benevolences. 
The finance committee, by comparing a list of mem- 
bers with the church treasurer's list of contributors, 
and then by personal work, should aid to bring 
about this much-to-be-desired result. 

9. Do not allow special pleas for money at one 
of our devotional meetings. However worthy the 
cause, it can wait until the cabinet conclude to 

* authorize it and present it at the proper time. It is 
a part of the treasurer's business to protect the 
chapter from special and comparatively trivial sub- 
scriptions. 

10. Don't try to collect money from other chap- 
ters for your own church debt. You ought not to 
present their appeals, and they ought not be asked 
to present yours. 

11. Have a birthday box. Celebrate your birth- 
day by putting in a penny for each year you have 
lived. If you are grateful, and able so to do, add a 
dollar for thanksgiving. 



Don'ts and Do's. 



65 



The following two suggestions are taken from 
What We Can Do, by Mrs. R. S. Douglass, Ply- 
mouth, Mass. : 

1 . A pleasant way for raising money is to hold a 
" dollar social." Some time before the social ask 
all interested to earn a dollar (or any specified 
amount) in some way outside of their regular work. 
At the social let each relate the method of earning it. 

2. The "talent" plan is sometimes helpful. 
From the treasury give each member a small sum, 
one to five cents. At a specified time this must be 
returned with all that has been made therefrom, and 
the history given. 

"Work in Connection with the Social Depart- 
ment. 

1 . Do not educate the League to rely on suppers 
and entertainments for its funds. The easiest way 
to raise money is to go right down into your 
pocket and give it. This produces the greatest net 
result also. 

2. Pay only one half the expenses of the dele- 
gates to the International, Conference, or district 
conventions. Perhaps the delegate will attend the 
program more regularly and faithfully if he pays 
the other half himself. There are exceptional cases, 
of course, when the entire expense ought to be met 
by the chapter. 

3. Don't hire a hall when the lecture room of the 
church would do as well. If the entertainment is not 
of sufficiently high character to hold in the lecture 
room of the church you don't want it at all. 

4. When you have a supper, or refreshments, 
5 



66 Concerning the Collection. 



take the price as an admission fee at the door. This 
is better than to interrupt the supper by asking them 
to pay at the table. If you have cake and cream, 
or coffee and sandwiches, charge for them at the 
door and give a ticket. 

Work with the Literary Department. 

1. Don't have one-dollar lectures. They are a 
dead loss, as are most high-priced lecture courses. 

2. Have a May Festival ; that is, arrange a pro- 
gram to run the whole of one of the weeks of May. 
Have a musical, lecture, spelling school, or reading 
each night. Sell tickets for the full week's program 
for fifty cents. Consult your pastor about details. 
He will save you money on your lectures. Charge 
twenty-five cents for single admissions to those who 
do not purchase week tickets. Let them punch all 
the admissions out for their friends the first night on 
the weekly ticket if they wish. There is money as 
well as entertainment in a May Festival. 

3. If you have a lecture, and mean to take a col- 
lection at its close, try asking for a nickel collection 
at the door as they go in ; that is, ask five cents 
from each person who enters. Do not require it, 
but ask it. You will get much more than by pass- 
ing the boxes later. 

4. Ten-cent lectures are growing in favor. A 
lecture course with four lectures and a musical, 
made up by some home talent, can be made to pay 
at fifty cents for the course. There are men in 
communities near you who get fifty dollars a night 
long distances from home. They will preferably 
speak for you for ten dollars. 



Don'ts and Do's. 



6 7 



5. Order, on vote of the chapter, fifty or one 
hundred copies of the Epworth League Bible Studies, 
Epworth League Handbooks, or badges, and sell 
them at the retail price. The publishing agents will 
furnish you these books in quantity at a special dis- 
count. Put the proceeds in the treasury. 

Work with, the Merey and. Help Department. 

1 . Order ten copies of Com fort for the Bereaved, 
or Comfort for the Sick, and sell them to the mercy 
and help committee for use in their systematic 
visitation. Charge the retail price, and credit profit 
to the treasury. 

2. Don't engage jubilee singers without recom- 
mendations from the Freedmen's Aid headquarters 
or from some member of the faculty of one of our 
Southern schools. 

3. From What We Can Do: Be interested in as 
many outside lines of work as possible. It will help 
the fervor of your own church work. If you wish 
to help some of the connectional work of the 
Church, hospitals, deaconess homes, immigrants' 
homes, home or foreign missions, let your spiritual 
or literary departments provide a local program or 
outside speaker, then take a collection. In this 
way you will bring new methods of work before the 
people, broadening their knowledge of the denomina- 
tion and giving the cause financial aid. 

Work with the Spiritual Department. 

1 . Provide a new singing book just before the 
beginning of special revival services. 

2. Offer to pay the traveling expenses of a neigh- 



68 Concerning the Collection. 



boring pastor who may be called in to assist your 
own during special services. 

3. Be sure to raise a generous contribution from 
the Epworth League for missions. 

4. Don't hire an evangelist. The Epworth League 
is its own evangelist. If the church wants one 
leave that to the official board. 

5. Take a collection at the monthly consecration 
service, or have that the regular night for the pay- 
ment of dues. If understood by all the members 
this alone will meet the ordinary expenses of the 
chapter. 



Exod. xxv, 1-7 ; xxxi, 1-6. Mai. i, 7-13 ; in, 8-12. 1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



"What Saith the Scripture?" 
i. 

Gifts for the Tabernacle. (Exod. xxv, 1-7; 
xxxi, 1-6.) 

IT is perplexing to reflect on the children of Israel 
at the period of the tabernacle building. They 
were sinful, idolatrous, unbelieving, unstable. (1) 
They did not know which way to go, and had to be 
directed by the pillar of cloud and fire. (2) They 
could not buy bread, and so God had to feed them 
with manna. (3) And after all their saving and bor- 
rowing they had brought these great riches into the 
wilderness where, apparently, they were of no use. 

It is a sad exhibition of human nature. Sinful- 
ness, cowardice, and famine had not been able to 
keep them from accumulating treasures. Either or 
all of the following ways will explain their ability to 
make such costly gifts to the tabernacle. 

1 . They had a certain amount of ancestral wealth, 
which they brought into Egypt, and which Joseph 
had accumulated. 

2. They had received large presents of gold and 
silver from the Egyptians just before departure. 
(Exod. xii, 35.) 

3. They had recently defeated, and no doubt 
despoiled, the Amalekites. (Exod. xvi, 8-13.) 

Their generosity in regard to the tabernacle is the 
one redeeming quality we are able Jo trace in the 
people as a whole at this time. 



72 Concerning the Collection. 



L The Givers. 

a. All the people. (V. 2.) 

It might be thought that as the tabernacle was to 
be the dwelling place of God, he would provide the 
materials for its construction. He gave the tables 
of the law to Moses. He gave the manna for food, 
and so he might have made a sanctuary, and caused 
it to descend in some marvelous manner among the 
people. God never does for us what we are able to 
do for ourselves. 

b. Those who gave of their own free will. (V. 2. 
See also 2 Cor. viii, 12 ; ix, 7.) 

There was no constraint ; all were the loving gifts 
of God's people. There was no church rate ; no 
assessment. There was no persuasion or pressing. 
Each resolved to do the utmost that he could, not 
seeking to obtain the praise of others. 

"This tabernacle might be a very inferior structure 
when measured by such principles as dictated 
Grecian art, but this was a thing of no consequence 
when compared with the higher consideration that 
its materials were freely brought." (Chadwick.) 

c. Those who thought it a privilege to give. 
(Exod. xxxv, 21 .) 

They remembered what God had done for them ; 
the old bondage, the present liberty ; the Red Sea 
crossing, Elim and its palm trees ; the hunger and 
the daily manna. 

" What an example for us. Church debts, fettered 
missionary enterprise, ministers of the Gospel con- 
verted into persistent yet unsuccessful beggars ; 
what are the Lord's people doing when such 
phenomena abound." (" Pulpit Commentary.") 



" What Saith the Scripture." 73 



II. The Gifts. 

a. Excellent in kind. 

The women, for example, gave their rings and 
jewels. These were used for personal adornment, 
and were cast into the laver. (See Exod. xxxviii, 8.) 

b. The best they had. 

It was imperative that all offerings from the flock 
should be without blemish. They could not give 
cedar and olive wood, as they were not to be had in 
the desert ; acacia wood was the best obtainable, and 
so they brought that. They had no silks or velvets, 
so God accepted linen, woolen, and goats' hair. 
The best of our time, the best of our powers, our in- 
tensest thought, and warmest love should be given 
to God. 

c. Of great value. 

Gold and silver and precious stones are all 
specified. Comparatively cheap articles were prob- 
ably abandoned on the march and only the most 
precious retained. These were given. We ought 
to make offerings of great value. We are coming 
to the time when there will be an increasing number 
who give large sums, very much exceeding one 
tenth, every year to God. 

44 Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 

Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all." 

d. Of great variety. 

Such diversity of material was required that 
everyone could give something. If the man had no 
gold, silver, or precious stones, there still remained 



74 Concerning the Collection. 



the responsibility of picking out something from 
what he had. 

e. In great quantity. 
They gave so liberally that they had to be 4 ' re- 
strained from bringing." (Exod. xxxvi, 6.) 

III. The Purpose of their Giving. 

God made a request and gave them directions : 
"Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among 
them." That is still our duty. We ought to build 
churches where the Holy Spirit will move upon the 
souls of men. This noble purpose of the people was 
renewed in David's time, when they prepared to 
build a temple (1 Chron. xxix, 6-9), and accom- 
plished in Solomon's day. It was manifest imme- 
diately after the return from captivity. (Ezra ii, 68, 
69 ; Neh. vii, 70-72.) 

IV. The Best of all Gifts. (Exod. xxxi, 1-6.) 
Aaron was set apart for the priesthood. Bezaleel 

and Aholiab gave themselves. They were called to 
the sacred office of a craftsman, which is never 
secular when filled by inspired men. These two in 
offering themselves for the work of construction 
were giving more than the richest merchant who 
gave the most precious stone for Aaron's vestment. 

"There is something better than this, namely, to 
consider ourselves, one's offerings, one's strength, 
one's all, as belonging to the dear Master ; as the rags 
and earnings and jewels of slaves belonged absolutely 
to their owners who had bought them off the block. 
. . .All you have and are is not your own, but 
Jesus Christ's." (F. B. Meyer.) 



;< What Saith the Scripture." 75 



11. 

Giving and Revivals. (Mai. i, 7-13; iii, 8-12.) 

The style of Malachi is prosaic, but it grew out of 
the prosaic times in which his work was cast. The 
lofty enthusiasm on the return of the first exiles had 
died out. The meanness of some governor who 
was in politics for what he could get out of it, and a 
corrupt priesthood had filtered down until greed and 
lust contaminated the whole people. There was no 
noble Nehemiah, conspicuous for his generosity. 
The sun of Israel had set, and the days of greed 
and cowardice and Phariseeism had begun. 

" The court (Gentile), which was a witness that 
that house should be a house of prayer for all nations, 
had been degraded into a place which for foulness 
was more like shambles, and for bustling com- 
merce more like a bazaar ; the lowing of oxen, the 
bleating of sheep, the babel of many voices, the 
huckstering and wrangling, and the clinking of 
money and of balances (perhaps not always just) 
might be heard in the adjoining court, distracting the 
chant of the Levites and the prayers of the priests." 
(Farrar.) 

I. Cessation of Giving a Cause of Religious Decline. 

a. There was an hireling ministry. 

The entire first chapter seems to be aimed at the 
priests. But the adage, older than Malachi, " Like 
priest, like people," will suffice to explain that they 
alone were not responsible. They but reflected the 
covetousness of the people. The governor was 
evidently using his office for private emolument. 
(Mai. i, 8.) 

b. Neither laity nor priests would do anything for 
the house of God unless they were paid for it. 



76 Concerning the Collection. 

(1.) They would not so much as kindle afire, 
(i, 10.) 

(2.) Nor open and close the doors, (i, 10.) 
(3.) Nor sing, and the services were too long 
anyway, (i, 13; ii, 12.) 
The janitor ordinarily receives little enough now- 
adays ; but how about the church choir ? The pew- 
renting system is at least modern. 

c. The offerings were imperfect. 

They did not bring the best, as at the building of 
the tabernacle. The people brought, and therefore 
the priests offered (1) the torn (i, 13), (2) the lame 
(i, 8). (3) the sick (i, 8), (4) the blind (i, 8), (5) and 
polluted bread (i, 7), (6) nor were the offerings so 
numerous as they should have been (iii, 8.) 

Of course these cheap things brought no reward. 
History truly repeats itself. When the best young 
men refuse to go into the ministry because there is 
more money in business, or go into it because they 
have failed elsewhere ; when we bring to the Church 
what we do not wish ourselves, and when members 
hoard their substance, so that they may bequeath 
great gifts to their families at death, the decline has 
come. 

d. Tithing was neglected, (iii, 8.) 

Nothing could be done but neglect the temple and 
the worship. There was no incense to burn, no 
offerings, as well as no one to build the fires. 
Small scrupulosities went on, though, just the same. 
There are always querulous complainings as faith 
declines. They went to the class meeting and to 
the cottage prayer meeting and took a prominent 



" What Saith the Scripture." 77 



part, even if they were absent on dedication day and 
mission collection Sunday. 

II. The Conditions and Results of a Revival. 
a. The conditions. 

(1.) Let them return to their duty in making 
offerings. (Mai. iii, 10-12.) 

1. ) Make them of proper quality. 

2. ) Sufficient in number. 
(2.) Let them pay their tithes. 

" 4 Are there not strictly business reasons that will 
at least partially account for the increased temporal 
prosperity of those who tithe their income ? ' 

"Yes. And yet it is hard to separate common 
sense and strict business matters and principles 
from God's laws ; in fact, it cannot be done. 

"Tithing our income is a tangible recognition of 
God's real ownership of our substance, and his 
blessing naturally follows such recognition. It is a 
practical acknowledgment also of the claims of 
humanity upon us, and human nature is swift to re- 
spond to such evidence of sincerity by hearty words 
of encouragement and helping hands. But these 
are results rather than causes. 

44 4 But are there not other and deeper reasons than 
these ? ' 

44 Yes. You believe a thing is right. In other 
words, you believe it to be your duty and have faith 
in it. By doing the thing itself you step into the 
line of your faith and duty, and you are at once and 
consciously a stronger, better, and more self-reliant 
man. Your mind and heart broaden. Instead of 
receiving, you give favors, and you begin to realize 



78 Concerning the Collection. 



the wealth of meaning in the Saviour's words, 4 It 
is more blessed to give than to receive.' 

44 4 Do not the promises of rewards in the Bible for 
the payment of the tenth of income back to God 
refer solely to spiritual blessings ? ' 

44 No. They refer very largely— I am tempted to 
say almost wholly — to temporal blessings. The 
third chapter of Malachi is perhaps the plainest in 
the Bible on this subject. Read it carefully and see 
if you can torture its meaning into promises of spirit- 
ual blessings only." (From 44 What We Owe to God.") 
b. Results. 

(1.) Windows of heaven open in abundant 

showers, (iii, 10.) 
(2.) Vineyards shall mature their fruit, (iii, 1 1 .) 
(3.) Fields shall not be ravaged by war. (iii, 

11.) 

The floods of war that rolled up and down the 
plains of Samaria and Galilee were to cease. 
Peace that permits the harvest to be gathered was to 
come once more. 

(4.) The border nations were to comment on 
the return of prosperity to Israel. 

44 Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give 
the tenth unto thee." There is no reason to doubt 
that this became the principle of Jacob's life, and if 
so he shames the majority of Christian people — 
most of whom do not give on this principle, and 
give a very uncertain and meager percentage of 
their income. The Church would have no lack if 
every one of its members acted upon this principle. 
Let the proportion be diminished if you will. . . . 
But let each person resolve to give systematically to 
the Lord's cause.". (F. B. Meyer.) 



'What Saith the Scripture." 79 



in. 

Concerning the Collection. (1 Cor, xvi, 1, 2.) 
Many of us saw the silver statue of Atlas with his 
world-burden at the Columbian Exposition. It sug- 
gested the rapidly-increasing wealth of our country, 
and the mighty strength and sustained effort of 
which money is capable, 

. Many of the richest men in the Church to-day laid 
the foundations of their fortunes only a few years 
since in the humblest poverty. It is therefore ex- 
tremely probable that in the future some who follow 
this Bible study will be rich, and many comfortably 
well-to-do. May all retain a fervent attachment for 
the simple ways of the Church in which they were 
bred, and generously devote their means to Christian 
uses! The most dangerous, because the most re- 
spectable, sin is covetousness. Be warned against 
it now ! 

" In the present state of mankind money is an ex- 
cellent gift, answering the noblest ends. In the 
hands of His children, it is food for the hungry, 
drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked. It 
gives to the traveler where to lay his head. By it 
we may supply the place of husband to the widow, 
and father to the fatherless. ... It may be as eyes 
to the blind, as feet to the lame ; yea, as a lifter up 
from the gates of death." (John Wesley.) 

I. Collections Generally Taken by Paul. (Rom. 
xv, 25, 26; 1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2; 2 Cor. viii, 1, 2; 
Gal. ii, 10.) 

44 His love to his Jewish kindred made him wel- 
come the suggestion. Moreover, every deed of 
charity rendered by the wealthier Gentile churches 
to ' the saints at Jerusalem ' was another tie helping 
to bind the two communities to each other. Of 



8o Concerning the Collection. 



such liberality Antioch, under the direction of the 
Gentile missionaries, had already set the example 
(Acts xi, 29, 30). " (Findlay.) 

II. Place of the Collection in Saint Paul's Letters. 

a. 1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2. (Just after chapter on the 
resurrection.) 

b. 2 Cor. viii, ix. (Just preceding his personal 
defense.) 

" Then immediately, without pause or apology, the 
apostle goes on: 4 Now concerning the collection.' 
There is no hesitation, no timidity. The remark 
follows as simply as if this matter were of all things 
the fittest to come in just there. Can we suppose 
that any of those early Christians had the sort of 
fastidious sensitiveness we find sometimes in these 
days ? Did they whisper to one another : ' What a 
pity to begin begging close upon such a vision of the 
heavenly glory ?' Did they think it * put a damper 
on the meeting?' " (A. Longacre.) 

" Then follows the most marvelous fragment ever 
written of any biography — a fragment beside which 
the most imperiled lives of the most suffering saints 
shrink into insignificance, and which shows us how 
fractional at the best is our knowledge of the details 
of Saint Paul's life." (Farrar.) (See 2 Cor. xi, 
22-33.) 

III. Directions for the Collection. 

a. Weekly offerings. (1 Cor. xvi, 2.) 

b. According to ability. (2 Cor. viii, 13, 14; 
ix. 6. 7.) 

c. Voluntary. (2 Cor. viii, 8.) 

There is no better method than this. Centuries of 
experiment have not improved upon it. When the 
Church shall frankly adopt and carry out this 
system, there will be shown a power to give far be- 



'What Saith the Scripture." 8i 



yond anything we now consider practicable. One 
cent a day from each member of the Epworth 
League would put annually $3,000,000 into the 
mission treasury of the Church. 

"'Every man according to his ability.' Not 
every man according to his mood and fancy, but 
every man according to his ability. Not every man 
according to other people's giving, or other people's 
ability, but every man according to his ability. 
How well cared for the poor brethren would be if 
this were the recognized standard of giving in the 
Church to-day !" (H. C. Trumbull.) 

IV. Motives to Giving. 

a. The need of the poor. (2 Cor. ix, 12.) 

b. An example to others. (2 Cor. viii, 1-3; 
ix, 13.) 

c. A completing grace. (2 Cor. viii, 7.) 

d. Thanksgiving. (2 Cor. viii, 9; ix, 15.) 
Observe that, as the brief directions in the first 

epistle (see 1 Cor. xvi, 1. 2) were not followed, the 
second epistle contains two whole chapters on the 
same subject. (2 Cor. viii, ix.) 
6 



When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it ; 
for he hath no pleasure in fools : pay that which thou hast 
vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that 
thou shouldest vow and not pay. (Eccles. v, 4, 5.) 



CHAPTER IX. 



An Interrogation. 

(From Thanksgiving A nn.) 

GOD claims a portion of our substance. 
" And all the tithes of the land, whether of the 
seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the 
Lord's ; it is holy unto the Lord." (Lev. xxvii, 30.) 

2. Withholding this claim is to rob God. 

"Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed me. 
But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In 
tithes and offerings." (Mai. iii, 8.) 

3. Therefore the claim should be attended to 
promptly. 

" And as soon as the commandment came abroad, 
the children of Israel brought in abundance the first 
fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all 
the increase of the field ; and the tithes of all the 
things brought they in abundantly." (2 Chron. 
xxxi, 5.) 

4. Worldly prosperity promised to those who 
honor God with their substance. 

"Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with 
the first fruits of all thine increase : so shall thy 
barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall 
burst out with new wine." (Prov. iii, 9, 10.) 

5. It is accepted according to what a man hath. 

" For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted 
according to that a man hath, and not according to 
that he hath not." (2 Cor. viii, 12.) 



84 Concerning the Collection. 



6. It should be given willingly. 

" Every man according as he purposeth in his 
heart, so let him give ; not grudgingly, or of neces- 
sity; for God loveth a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. ix, 
7.) 

7. Does poverty or limited means excuse anyone 
from giving to the Lord ? 

" They shall not appear before the Lord empty : 
every man shall give as he is able, according to the 
blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given 
thee." (Deut. xvi, 16, 17.) 

8. Jacob's vow. 

" Of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give 
the tenth unto thee." (Gen. xxviii, 22.) 

Will you act on these principles? If so, sign 
your name to this, and begin to-day. 

Name 

Date 

" But now complete the doing also ; that as there 
was the readiness to will, so there may be the com- 
pletion also out of your ability. For if the readiness 
is there, it is acceptable according as a man hath, 
not according as he hath not." (2 Cor. viii, 11, 12. 
Revised Version.) 



The following sermon by my esteemed presiding elder, Dr. 
Longacre, was delivered before the New York Annual Confer- 
ence at its session at First Church, Yonkers, when I was a pastor 
there. It impressed me then as bringing home with particular 
force to young ministers and laymen their very important duty 
in regard to matters of finance. Repeated readings of the ser- 
mon have but confirmed the impression formed under the per- 
sonal magnetism of the speaker on the occasion of its delivery. 
All who read it will thank me for republishing it, as well as the 
author for his kind permission to use it. 

E. A. S. 



CHAPTER X. 



New York Conference Missionary Sermon. 

BY REV. ANDREW LONGACRE, D.D. 
44 Now concerning the collection." (i Cor. xvi, i.) 
Power of Money. 

THE old word in Ecclesiastes, that " money an- 
swereth all things" (Eccles. x, 19), was never 
more true than now. There were never so many- 
things which money could buy. There were never 
such powers, such facilities, such resources at its 
command. Money itself could never reach so far, 
nor go so swiftly, so securely, so cheaply, as now. 
Deposited in a bank in New York to-day, a man can 
have the credit and use of it to-morrow in London, 
or Calcutta, or Hong-Kong. 

In the Hands of Christians. 

Never before was this power of money in the 
hands of a Christian nation as it is in ours, whether 
we regard immense accumulations in single fortunes, 
or the moderate competence of the mass of the 
people. In a recent article in our own Review it is 
stated that seventy men in this country own twenty- 
seven hundred millions, not one of them having less 
than twenty millions ; and while in Great Britain 
one thirtieth of the inhabitants hold two thirds of the 
wealth, in this country one half as many hold that 



88 



Concerning the Collection. 



amount. We have men in private life who could 
easily rival the peacock throne of the Great Mogul 
at Delhi, while the mass of the people are able to 
give . without sacrifice beyond any others in the 
world. 

May be a Curse. 

That our wealth may be a curse, we have plain 
warning in the word of God. That it may become 
a vast power for evil, socially and politically, is 
alarmingly enough indicated in our public life. But 
no one who believes in God can doubt that he de- 
signs it for good. In the increased power of money, 
and in the gathering of it in Christian hands, we 
cannot fail to see the movement of divine Providence 
for the salvation of the world. 

For with this increase there has come also the 
removal of those hindrances which had previously 
barred the progress of the Gospel. The time was 
when no money could open the doors shut against 
Christianity by heathen fear or policy or fanaticism. 
Everywhere now those doors are open. There have 
been times, and not long ago, when there was more 
money for Christian missions than men. You all 
know that of late years there has been an uprising 
for this work which is like a new crusade. Men and 
women — whole families — offer themselves freely to 
face the deadly climate of Equatorial Africa at the 
call of Bishop Taylor, who, at threescore and ten, 
goes before them unharmed by "the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness, or the destruction that wasteth 
at noonday." Some die and a few grow faint-heart- 
ed, but others press forward into their places. 



Missionary Sermon. 



89 



Students' Volunteer Movement. 

You are aware that thousands of college students 
all over the land, our best and brightest, stand pledged 
for this work in the foreign field. At first their 
pledge was : 

" We are both willing and desirous, God permit- 
ting, to be foreign missionaries." 

Then, the idea having got abroad that their zeal 
had abated, they made a new and individual declara- 
tion : 

" I will go as a foreign missionary unless God 
positively prohibits." 

At last accounts six thousand young men and 
young women had signed that declaration. 

Reduced to a Money Question. 

The one thing now lacking is the money, and 
that is in our hands. With it you and I can send to 
the work better men than ourselves, better qualified, 
better trained, and more richly endowed. 

One trembles to think of the immense power for 
good lodged in the hands of individual holders of 
great fortunes ; of men in this country who could 
carry single-handed with their own incomes more 
than our whole missionary work many times over. 
Think of one person able to look at such a work, 
with its tens of thousands of conversions in a year, 
its increase of churches, of schools, its hospitals and 
orphanages, and its slow but steady revolutionizing 
of whole lands for Christ and Christian civilization, 
and know that his single gift had made it possible ! 



90 Concerning the Collection. 



"Many Millioned Drexel takes the Veil." 

We cannot wonder at the devotion of one banker's 
daughter who, a few months ago, gave herself and 
her fortune of seven millions to what she believed to 
be the service of God in winning souls. If such in- 
stances must be rare, think how small a sacrifice 
among the members of our own Church would easily 
place as large a sum in the treasury of our Mission- 
ary Society, when one cent a day from each one of 
us would give more than eight millions a year ! 

Impressed by such considerations, I have felt that 
I could bring to this service no more important sub- 
ject than " the collection." 

I. The most striking thing about this text is the 
place St. Paul gives it in this epistle. 

We can scarce help wondering what must have 
been the feelings of the Christians at Corinth when 
this epistle from their father in the Gospel was first 
read in their hearing. Coming eagerly together to 
hear it, as they must have done upon tidings of its 
arrival, we can imagine their varying emotions as 
the reading went on, with its mingled reproofs and 
exhortations and answers to questions they had sent 
him. Think of hearing for the first time that great 
thirteenth chapter on charity, which is indeed "the 
greatest thing in the world," since it underlies all 
other good, and all other good goes with it ! 

Then with what kindling faith they must have fol- 
lowed the triumphant discussion of the resurrection 
in the fifteenth chapter ! Surely, flowing tears and 
exultant responses must have followed the victorious 
outburst, "Thanks be to God which giveth us the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! " 



Missionary Sermon. 



9i 



Turn in the Argument. 

Then immediately, without pause or apology, the 
apostle goes on : " Now concerning the collection." 
There is no hesitation, no timidity. The remark 
follows as simply as if this matter were of all things 
the fittest to come in just there. 

Ding Dong for Money. 

Can we suppose that any of those early Christians 
had the sort of fastidious sensitiveness we find some- 
times in these days ? Did they whisper to one an- 
other, "What a pity to begin begging close upon 
such a vision of heavenly glory ! " Did they think 
it " put a damper on the meeting ? " 

St. Paul evidently does not anticipate any such 
criticism. He has no fear of an anticlimax, or of 
letting his hearers down, or chilling their religious 
feeling. He moves on without faltering from the 
very gate of heaven to this most practical necessity. 

We must believe that his inspiration was right. If 
we see an incongruity, it is we that are at fault. 
The blessed Holy Ghost led him to lay this great 
duty upon the waiting church just when their hearts 
were most lifted heavenward, and when earthly and 
selfish tendencies were weakest. 

The putting of this appeal here is as if he had said 
to the Church for all time : Go, get your souls full 
of the joy of your heavenly hope. Look up till you 
can see the distinct glory of the pearly gates. Think 
how the victory over sin and death was won for you 
by the sacrifice of the Son of God. Then ask your- 
selves, ' What is my part in the collection ? ' " 



9 2 



Concerning the Collection. 



God's Time is Now. 

It is a luminous reminder that the time for giving 
and for sacrifice hastens to an end. Very soon we 
shall be where we can no longer help to save souls. 
Then we shall understand, as we cannot now, the 
supreme importance of these opportunities ; then, 
when in our heavenly home, we may regret in vain 
that we did so little to bring others to share it. 

That St. Paul was amply justified in giving such 
prominence to this matter we can readily perceive, 
when we ourselves try to estimate its importance. 

A Practical Thing, 
For the collection is the only practical thing which 
we who have to stay at home can do for the salva- 
tion of the greater world. It is the only tangible 
evidence of our interest in missionary work. It 
is the only manifestation of our sympathy with the 
travail of Christ's soul. It is the one material re- 
sult and outcome of all our sermons and speeches 
and meetings and prayers. Doubtless the sermons 
and speeches may have a certain rhetorical value as 
works of art, models of eloquence, worthy to be pre- 
served for the admiration and instruction of future 
generations. But the one actual fruit and fact is 
" the collection." All the rest is only a preparation 
for this, and is worth simply the money it sooner or 
later brings into the treasury. 

Limits of the Work. 
Besides, the collection is necessarily the absolute 
limit of our work in the field. We accomplish only 
what we pay for. In every land our missionaries go 



Missionary Sermon. 



93 



only so far as our contributions take them. Not a 
child is taught in a village school in India, not a con- 
vert baptized in the mela, beyond* the reach of the 
money we send. In Egypt not a blade of grass grows 
above the line of the Nile's rise. Human skill can 
dam the water and carry it farther and pump it 
higher, but it is powerless beyond the line it reaches. 
So in all heathendom our gifts mark the fatal line 
which our work cannot pass. 

How Much a Soul Costs. 

I once heard Dr. Peck estimate how much each 
convert in our missions cost. The sum was aston- 
ishingly small. Of course such an estimate can 
never be precise. But we must recognize the plain 
fact that, God's blessing being promised, every ad- 
vance in giving means more good done, and every 
withholding diminishes the number of souls saved. 
It is an awful calculation to weigh our dollars against 
souls, to know that the less we give the fewer will be 
won for Christ. 

Cast thy Bread, -upon the Waters. 

You may remind me of the difference in results 
from the zeal of the laborers. You and I have 
nothing to do with that. For that they must answer, 
not we. Our duty is the giving. 

We recognize fully our entire dependence upon 
the Holy Spirit, without whom we can do nothing. 
But we are living in the dispensation of the Holy 
Ghost. He has come ; he has never withdrawn. 
His cooperation in all the work of the Gospel is one 
of the certainties of our religion, He moves with us, 



94 Concerning the Collection. 



opening our way, and crowning every advance, every 
increase of activity with his power. 

We must face the fact that in the measure of our 
giving will be our success. Reverently let it be 
recognized that God's blessing for the heathen de- 
pends upon our liberality. He waits for us. The 
Holy Spirit waits. The whole economy of salvation 
is at a standstill until our giving opens the last door. 

Ne Plus Ultra. 

I shall not ask you to consider in detail the high 
wisdom of the directions for the collection St. Paul 
gives in this place. Modern study, after ages of ex- 
periment, teaches no better method. 

4 • Upon the first day of the week let every one of you 
lay by him in store as God hath prospered him." 
(V. 2.) 

Let everyone give, and each according to his 
providential ability ; let the gatherings be frequent, 
and thus in small amounts at a time. When the 
Church shall frankly adopt and carry out this system 
there will be shown a power to give far beyond any- 
thing we now consider practicable. 

II, These directions are brief and concise, a 
model instance of putting much in few words. 

There are no doubt many excellent people who 
would be glad to make them the pattern in this re- 
spect for all financial appeals in the Church. " How 
delightful it would be," say they, " if all preachers 
would only follow this example of St. Paul, and limit 
themselves to a condensed statement of the case, and 
then leave it with the people to give as they are 
disposed ! ' ' 



Missionary Sermon. 



95 



Easy Way Out. 

Very agreeable would it be to do this and nothing: 
more. It would lighten immensely the burden of 
Christian preachers had St. Paul's example ended 
here. But, unhappily, one of the things I have to 
say of this appeal is that it was a failure. It did not 
accomplish the end proposed. 

This epistle was written about the time of Easter, 
in the spring of the year 57. In the autumn of the 
same year, that is, about six months later, St. 
Paul was inspired to write the second epistle to the 
same church at Corinth. In this second epistle he 
recurs to this matter of the collection, but this time* 
instead of limiting himself to two or three verses, he 
carries his appeal through two entire chapters, the 
eighth and ninth ; and his handling of the matter 
there is one of the highest examples of his marvel- 
ous skill in dealing with men. I heard Dr. Durbin 
once say that it seemed to him not irreverent to say 
that in tact St. Paul even surpassed our blessed 
Lord himself. If such an assertion may stand, this 
discourse would go far to sustain it. 

Right Way Out. 
He found that the Greeks of that busy commercial 
city, full of traffic and the luxury that follows wealth, 
were not so ready to part with their drachmas as he 
had presumed. He might have known as much, 
we cannot help thinking, since it is on record that, 
while he dwelt there, he had to support himself, 
working with his own hands, except when the Phi- 
lippians once and again sent to relieve his necessi- 
ties. In his second appeal, therefore, he evidently 



96 Concerning the Collection. 

addresses himself to a difficult task. Though fully 
aware of the failure of his first appeal, there is yet no 
touch of reproach or fault-finding. With a noble 
blending of dignity and authority and paternal 
tenderness, not unmixed with graceful compliment 
for what could be commended, he rises to the oc- 
casion. Nowhere else does he display so clearly the 
surpassing flexibility of his genius, the power of " be- 
coming all things to all men." He, who could 
"speak wisdom among the perfect." here stoops to 
touch every vibrant chord in natures dwarfed and 
selfish and worldly. These are not his generous and 
beloved Macedonians of Philippi, some two hundred 
and fifty miles away to the north, but a great deal 
farther off than that in grace. Yet these harder 
hearts must be won and taught and drawn up to- 
ward the Christly spirit. So, like a father, as he was, 
or "as a nurse cherishing her young children," he 
made his plea. 

Tells a Story— Good One. 

It is, of course, unnecessary that I should recall 
the familiar language of these famous chapters, yet 
it will be wise to glance at the substance of them. 
The seventh chapter closes with this hopeful and 
cheerful word of preparation : "I rejoice, therefore, 
that I have confidence in you in all things." Then 
he tells them a little story of the surprising gener- 
osity of the poor Macedonian Christians, who had 
pressed him with much entreaty to accept their con- 
tributions, which, he could testify, went beyond their 
ability. He commends the Corinthians for a num- 
ber of good things, for their faith and utterance and 



Missionary Sermon. 



9? 



knowledge and diligence, and for their love to him- 
self, and then begs them to add this completing 
grace : pointing them to the great pattern of self- 
sacrifice, Christ, "who, though he was rich, yet for 
our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty 
might be made rich." Their previous reluctance he 
characterizes merely as delay, and holds up to them 
the law of all giving " according to that a man hath, 
and not according to that he hath not." 

As if replying to an objection, he disclaims the in- 
tention of burdening them that others should be 
eased, as he meant only to bring about an equalizing 
of burdens. He shows how carefully he has ar- 
ranged for the conveyance of the money by other 
hands than his own, so as to avoid the least suspi- 
cion of his motives. 

Praises them Somewhat. 

He stoops lower — touching their self-esteem, re- 
minding them that he had before boasted of their 
good intentions, and had thus stirred up others to 
give ; and now he presses them to be prompt with 
this delicate thrust : "Lest haply if they of Mace- 
donia come with me, and find you unprepared " (he 
does not intimate that they are unwilling), "we 
(that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same 
confident boasting" (2 Cor. ix, 4). Then he rises to the 
strongest part of his plea, an admonition, with a tone 
of solemn warning in it against " sowing sparingly, 
and urges them to a cheerful and loving liberality as 
the only sort of giving which God will accept. He 
assures them that they will not be losers by it, for 
God will take care of them ; and he shows how their 
7 



98 Concerning the Collection. 



example will stimulate others, and bring glory to 
God as an evidence of their faithfulness, and awaken 
the gratitude of those they have helped. 

All through this special discourse, from point to 
point, it is a masterpiece of solicitation, strong, dig- 
nified, religious, appealing to the highest motives, 
and yet showing a wise and compassionate appre- 
ciation of imperfect grace and the weakness of 
human nature. 

III. In this place and presence, appointed to preach 
a missionary sermon before the Conference, it 
seems incumbent upon me to make some attempt to 
apply this example of St. Paul to us, who as min- 
isters of Christ sustain the same relation to our 
churches that he did to the church at Corinth. 

Preachers' Duty. 

Upon us, as truly as upon him, falls the necessity 
of leading Christian people up to their privilege of 
giving of their substance for Christ's work in the 
world. We are as truly called to this service as to 
save sinners or to edify the Church. We must set 
this duty so plainly before men that they shall no 
"more fail in it than in keeping any other of the com- 
mands of Christ. It is a vital and momentous part 
of that Gospel teaching with which we are " to feed 
the Church of God which he hath purchased with 
his own blood.'* 

"Serve Yourself would You be Well Served. ' ' 

And the duty is the more urgent, since for the 
large majority of us there can be neither substitute 
nor helper in it. A few of us can occasionally 



Missionary Sermon. 



99 



secure the assistance of some eminent preacher to 
present the claims of missions to our congregations ; 
but for the greater number no voice but ours will be 
heard in instruction or pleading. The measures we 
propose are those only which will be adopted. The 
appeal we make, and the influence we exert, and the 
example we set, will decide the action of our people. 
If we fail, they will. Looking at St. Paul's great 
example, we dare not content ourselves with simply 
telling men to give, and then leaving them to give 
or not, as they please. 

We have not, indeed, the authority or inspiration 
of an apostle nor St. Paul's marvelous tact, but in 
our lower place and feebler measure we must follow 
his steps. We are to feel for our brethren in their 
human weakness and their little grace. Knowing 
the fight they must wage against selfishness and 
worldliness and covetousness, we must use our best 
and last resources. For their own souls we can 
bring them no other message that has more to do 
with their salvation here and their reward hereafter. 

Encouragement. 

We may not always succeed, but we shall often 
do better than we hope. The obdurate rich man 
may still refuse to give liberally, but some lad earn- 
ing his first wages may be touched by the word not 
aimed at him, and started in a course (of which, 
thank God ! we have many instances among us) of 
whole-souled giving from youth to age — to death. 
There are names which the whole Church honors as 
synonymous with princely — no, with saintly, liberal- 
ity. Whose word first won them ? Who opened to 



ioo Concerning the Collection. 



them the path of cheerful self-sacrifice? It was some 
humble and earnest minister of Christ, who never 
dreamed what he was doing, and who, perhaps, went 
home to weep with a discouraged heart, because the 
men he tried to win remained untouched. 

Religion In It Too. 
There is no other service in which we so truly 
stand like Aaron when, with burning censer, he ran 
out to stay the plague " between the living and the 
dead." We stand between the living Church at 
home and its wealth, and the perishing millions of 
the heathen world. We are the only link — the only 
one living intermediary to bring the resources of the 
one to the rescue of the other. On no day of the 
year does a weightier responsibility rest upon us than 
the day we ask for the missionary collection. At 
other times we address those we see before us for 
themselves. That day, besides the visible congre- 
gation, a vast unseen multitude of souls hangs on 
the power of our word. Could we see them — if, by 
some miracle of enlightenment the veils of distance 
could be swept away, and our sight should take in 
the awful vistas of heathen wretchedness, those 
" dark places of the earth that are full of the habita- 
tions of cruelty;" lands reeking with unutterable 
corruptions, enveloping the innocent souls of children 
that are as truly lambs of God's fold as your children 
or mine, and as dear to him — could we fathom the 
anguish of races and continents and generations, in 
long succession, without God and without hope, 
surely our hearts would rather break than fail to 
plead with our utmost power. 



Missionary Sermon. 



ioi 



Go and. Do Likewise. 

I went once to hear a famous lawyer plead in de- 
fense of a man on trial for murder. The lawyer was 
David Paul Brown, of Philadelphia, then in the 
height of his fame. He had been for more than 
forty years active in the courts ; so long that I re- 
member he spoke to the judge presiding of a case in 
which he had pleaded ' ' before your honor was born. ' • 
The case in court was like many a one he had had 
before. Yet I observed that when this practiced 
pleader came into court he was greatly agitated. 
He seemed to see no one. He tossed his papers to 
and fro. When he arose to speak his voice trembled 
and his hands shook. Everything about him be- 
trayed the intensity of his feelings. 

In the same case I listened to the maiden speech 
of his junior counsel, a man who has since risen to 
the top of his profession, and is now one of its most 
brilliant and accomplished orators. As was to be 
expected on such an occasion, the younger man gave 
every evidence of intense solicitude for his client, and 
pleaded for him as if he had been a near and dear 
friend. These men did honor to their profession. 
They did their best to save one man from the 
gallows. 

My brethren, when we stand to plead with our 
people for that vast unseen congregation of perish- 
ing millions, when we ask for the means by which 
alone they can be rescued from death, we are plead- 
ing for souls. 



APPENDIX. 



HE following plan for the use of the Epworth 



* Tithing Band was adopted by the General 
Cabinet too late for other insertion than in this 
appendix. It was proposed by Willis W. Cooper, 
and will be published independently as a tract : 



" Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely 
give the tenth unto thee." — Pledge of Jacob. 
(Gen. xxviii, 22.) 



My Pledge 



In setting forth the purpose of this plan, it is not 
our thought to make any argument to prove God's 
part is one tenth, or that the command for tithing 
has never been revoked. 

The revival of tithing in this latter day, with abun- 
dant proof of God's favor, is too well known to need 
argument to sustain its place in the economy of the 
Church. 




GOD'S TENTH. 



A. D. 1895. 



io4 Concerning the Collection. 



We believe it is God's plan, hence our effort to 
put it in practical form for nineteenth century use. 

Most of those who will have use for this book are 
convinced that a tenth is little enough to give. 
Many, doubtless, are giving much more to the Lord; 
setting it apart faithfully, " as the Lord hath pros- 
pered," but all will feel the need of a systematic, 
convenient method of accounting for the Lord's 
money. 

Comparatively few can give any account of money 
expended for the Church or benevolent purposes. 

The question, as to how much and to what ob- 
jects one should give, is one of no little moment to 
thousands of devoted Christians. 

Many who give liberally when called upon, so 
long as they have money, are prevented from giving 
to objects which should have their support, because 
the money has gone to less worthy objects. 

Every Christian is the Lord's steward. With some 
he has placed two and with others five talents, but 
from each he will require an accounting. 

In order that the members of the Epworth League, 
or members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, may 
know the objects the Church has called upon them 
to support, we append below the amounts contributed 
to each of our benevolences during the past year, 
and also the amounts contributed to the ministry and 
local church during 1894, as taken from the Metho- 
dist Yeci7' Book, To this we have added an item for 
miscellaneous benevolences, which includes the 
Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Societies, 
charities, etc.; these give a basis upon which every 
loyal Methodist can give systematically to the Lord : 



Appendix. 105 

Parent Missionary Society $1,137,807 

Church Extension 128,830 

Sunday School Union 24,667 

Tract Society 21,295 

Freedmen's Aid and Southern Educa- 
tion Society 108,909 

Education 185,589 

American Bible Society 32,853 

Pastors, Presiding Elders, and Bishops. 10,714,161 

Conference Claimants 256,051 

Church Building, Improvements, and 

Debts 7,393,660 

Current Church Expenses 3,820,373 

Miscellaneous Benevolences, including 
the Woman's Home and Foreign 

Missionary Societies, Charities, etc. 6,175,805 



$30,000,000 

It will be seen the total contribution is $30,000,- 
000, and as a unit of this amount a person who earns 
$300 per year, giving one tenth to the Lord, will set 
aside $30 to the credit of the Lord's account. 

No one will claim that the present ratio of giving 
to these different objects is entirely just, but by fol- 
lowing closely the ratio shown to be in actual use we 
shall reach the best results practicable. We hsve 
grouped, therefore, pastoral support, Conference 
claimants, and current expenses together and rec- 
ommend as follows : 

For Pastors, Presiding Elders, and Bishops. $11 00 

Conference Claimants 50 

Current Church Expenses 2 50 

In a second group we have placed church building 
and improvements, the regular benevolences, and 



io6 Concerning the Collection. 



miscellaneous contributions, and recommend the 
following pro rata : 



For Church Buildings, Improvements, Debts, 

etc $4 50 

Parent Missionary Society 5 00 

Church Extension 50 

Freedmen's Aid and So. Education Society. 50 

Education 25 

American Bible Society 15 

Sunday School Union 05 

Tract Society 05 

Woman's Home and Foreign Miss. Societies. 1 50 

Mercy and Help and Miscellaneous 3 50 



From a person who receives $150 per annum, 
only one half of the above amount would be paid, 
taking thirty as the unit ratio. 

From a person receiving $600, twice as much as 
the above, or twice the unit thirty. 

From a person receiving $3,000, ten times as 
much as the above, or ten times the unit ratio thirty. 

Thus allowing thirty to be the unit, the ratio due 
from each tither will be the same to all and can be 
readily figured. 

NOTES. 

Those who are especially interested in some par- 
ticular benevolence are permitted to use a different 
ratio for these benevolences, provided the one tenth 
of the income is given. 

Tithing should be figured from the net income, 
not the net surplus after living expenses have been 
deducted. 

Many examples are before us where the Lord has 
proven his promise. "Bring ye all the tithes into 



Appendix. 



107 



the storehouse, . . . and prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the 
windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
that there shall not be room enough to receive it." 
Not only rich spiritual blessings, but temporal as well. 

We request all Epworth tithers to write of their 
experiences at the end of each year, addressing the 
Secretary. 

Anyone may become a member of the Epworth 
Tithing Band by purchasing one of these books of 
account, pledging cooperation and registering their 
names and P. O. address with the Secretary of the 
Epworth Tithing Band, 

57 Washington Street, Chicago, 111. 

No 



Divide and Pay Each $30 into the 



$11 oo 



$0 50 



$2 50 



$4 50 



$5 00 



Jan. , 
Feb., 
March, 
April, 
May, 
June, 
July, 
Aug. , 
Sept. , 
Oct. , 
Nov. , 
Dec, 



Funds as per the following Table: 



$0 50 


$0 25 


$0 15 $0 05 $0 05 


$1 50 


$3 50 


$30 00 


Freedmen's Aid and South- 
ern Education Society. 


Education. 


American Bible Society. 


Sunday School Union. 


Tract Society. 


Woman's Home and Foreign 
Missionary Societies. 


Mercy and Help and Miscel- 
j laneous. 


Total. 












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